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European shares plummet on Malaysian plane crash [ICN.com Financial Markets](ICN.com Financial Markets Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) European shares slumped on Tuesday, adding sharply to losses at the end of the trading day after reports that a Malaysian passenger plane was shot down in Ukraine near the Russian border. A Malaysian airliner was shot down over eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian militants on Thursday, killing all 295 people aboard, a Ukrainian interior ministry official said. The aircraft, which other sources said was a Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, came down near the city of Donetsk, stronghold of pro-Russian rebels, Ukrainian official Anton Gerashchenko said, adding that it was hit by a ground-to-air missile. Raising the stakes in the East-West showdown between Kiev and Moscow, the official blamed "terrorists" using a ground-to-air missile and Ukraine`s prime minister called the downing of the flight a "catastrophe". - Stoxx 600 lost 0.94 percent or 3.23 points to 339.74 - Stoxx 50 dropped 1.41% or 45.12 points to 3157.82 Airline stocks fell, with Air France KLM retreating 1.5 percent while Lufthansa lost 2.4 percent. The Madrid-listed shares of International Consolidated Airlines Group - the owner of British Airways and Iberia - fell 3.4 percent. Alfa Laval AB fell 3.3 percent in Stockholm after the company reported lower EBITDA margin in its second quarter and warned it sees sequentially flat demand in the third quarter. TeliaSonera AB lost 2 percent as the Swedish telecommunications firm reported a decline in second-quarter profit on weak net sales and cut its full-year revenue outlook. Carrefour Group was down 1 percent in Paris. The French grocery retailer reported second-quarter 2014 consolidated sales of 20.52 billion euros, a 5.2 percent increase at constant exchange rates and a 0.3 percent improvement at current exchange rates year-over-year. Pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG said its second-quarter profit improved slightly from the prior year, amid a small growth in sales. The company backed its full-year outlook. Shares were down 1.7 percent. -The British FTSE 100 lost 0.68% or 46.35 points to 6738.32 -The French CAC 40 lost 1.21% or 52.94 to 4316.12 -Frankfurt's DAX 30 lost 1.07% or 105.39 points to 9753.88 (c) 2014 ICN.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |