percent average growth in European earnings will slow down to a 9-percent rise in 2005. Higher raw material costs have capped earnings improvements for a number of companies, with appliance maker Electrolux cutting its 2004 outlook on Wednesday. U.S. rival Whirlpool also cited higher raw material costs as it reported a mostly flat third-quarter profit, ahead of the U.S. market opening, and warned on earnings for the year. Stock futures were pointing to a weaker start on Wall Street, particularly for the tech-laced Nasdaq Composite Index. Around Europe, London's FTSE 100, Zurich's SMI and Paris's CAC-40 all fell about 0.8 percent while Frankfurt's DAX was down 1.2 percent. --More 2251 Local Time 1951 GMT
