European shares ended flat on Friday as Novartis's rally boosted drug stocks, offsetting a lacklustre performance from technology firms such as Nokia and resource heavyweights, according to Reuters. Steelmaker Arcelor jumped as investors continued to hope Mittal may raise its bid, while Sweden's Volvo, British Airways and Norway's Norske Skog tumbled as their earnings or outlooks disappointed. "What we've seen in Europe is more or less in line, but I don't think we'll have such a big number of upgrades," Martin Sirch, fund manager at HSBC Trinkaus in Dusseldorf said of European earnings reports. "It's widely expected that growth will come down, in almost all sectors you have earnings momentum coming down. A slowdown in earnings growth is expected and is very possible." The pan-European FTSEurofirst index of 300 leading shares closed up 0.04 percent at 1,320.29, with Wall Street failing to inspire as the Dow Jones lost 0.3 percent and Nasdaq fell 0.8 percent. Despite ticking up to fresh 4-1/2-year highs earlier in the week, the European market is broadly flat for the week and still up 3 percent for the year-to-date. "Overall, I think we're in the second leg of a bull market, there's an above even chance that the whole market could get re-rated by 15-20 percent," said Mark Tinker, ICAP equity strategist. --More 23 31 Local Time 20 31 GMT
