-Spanish GDP contracted by less than was expected
-Spanish bad bank assets in focus
-Positive comments from Wilbur Ross on Spanish banks
-Peugeot near deal for aid -Bbg
-Hearing on legal complaint against ESM scheduled for today -Bbg
-Greek PM says deal with coalition partners must be reached today or tomorrow

FTSE-100: -1.08%
Dax-30: -1.39%
Cac-40: -1.08%
FTSE Mibtel 30: -1.02%
Ibex 35: -1.12%
Stoxx 600: -1.02%

European equities are trading lower despite a last-minute turn around, last night, on Wall Street and on the back of some weaker than expected earnings reports Europe-wide this morning.

Also weighing on sentiment is the poor guidance given by US technology giant Texas Instruments yesterday, after the close of trading.

Furthermore, earlier today market sentiment seemed to have turned against Spain a little, despite what at first glance looked like much as expected Treasury bill auction results. Contributing to the above, ratings agency Moody's downgraded five Spanish region's debt ratings, two of them to junk.

The Bank of Spain however this morning released data pointing to a significantly smaller than feared contraction in the country's economy during the third quarter, of 0.4% in terms of quarterly rates of change (Consensus: -0.7%).

Results undershoot expectations

Germany's second biggest lender has mandated UBS to help it sell its custodian business, two people familiar with the transaction told Reuters.

Norwegian aluminium producer Norsk Hydro, Europe's third largest, registered an underlying third-quarter net loss of 20m Norwegian crowns ($3.53m).

French auto parts maker Faurecia cut its full-year earnings forecast as European auto production slows.

Swedish engineering group Alfa Laval's third quarter core earnings were below market expectations. The firm expects demand in the final quarter of the year to be flat at best.

Nokia is off by 5% after saying that it will issue 750m euros in convertible bonds.

Michelin is higher after reporting better than expected third quarter profits and revenues.

From a sector stand-point the worst performance now on the DJ Stoxx 600 is to be seen in the following industrial groups: Basic resources (-1.84%), Chemicals (-1.75%) and Insurance (-1.44%).

French business confidence falls

Italian non-EU trade deficit has come in at 596m Euros for September, versus -970m Euros in the month before.

INSEE's French business confidence indicator for the month of October has fallen to the 85 point level from 90 points in the previous month (Consensus: 90).

Single currency drifts lower

The euro/dollar is now down by 0.45% to the 1.3007 dollar mark.

Front month Brent crude futures are now down by 0.505 dollars, to the 108.88 dollar mark on the ICE.

AB

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