European stock markets snapped a three-day winning streak yesterday after cautious outlooks from Ericsson and telecom equipment making peer Alcatel, and Deutsche Bank's drab earnings.

Heavily weighted drugmaker Aventis also shed 1.5 per cent as investors shrugged off the French-German group's solid net profit to focus on news it was slightly lowering its full-year sales goal due to health care reforms.

Strategists said that if third-quarter earnings had on average met expectations, and justified sharp rises in share prices over the past few months, but that company guidance was too timid to spur another market rally.

By 0945 GMT, the FTSE Eurotop 300 index index of pan-European blue chips, was down 0.1 per cent at 915 points, while the DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index also inched down 0.3 per cent to 2,550 points.

The benchmark Eurotop index remains 16 points below a year-high reached in early September but stands about six per cent above breakeven for the year.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.