European shares ended lower for the second day in a row today, further cooling a rally that has added a third to stock prices in the past ten weeks, as defensives and Swiss stocks weighed, according to Reuters. The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares ended down 0.18 percent at 856 points, having traded up as much as 0.6 percent earlier in the session. Benchmarks in Britain, Germany and France ended higher but Swiss stocks lost 1.8 percent, catching up with European losses after a market holiday on Thursday. Defensives were among the top weighted losers in Europe, with drug stocks Novartis, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Aventis down 0.9 to 1.9 percent and food group Nestle off 1.8 percent. Among other Swiss stocks, banks Credit Suisse lost 2.7 percent and UBS fell 4.8 percent. Analysts said markets were likely to consolidate and could drift lower over the summer months before recovering later in the year. "In order to gain more we need good news and good results. The market's going to consolidate at current levels -- we think the lows of March will hold... (though) we could see a 10 percent drift downward by summer," said Victor Peiro Perez, strategist at Caja Madrid Bolsa. "On the banks we have seen more or less stabilisation of core capital but what we need now is better profits, higher income margins and fundamentally good numbers." Across the Atlantic, top stock benchmarks were between 0.2 and 0.45 percent higher, recovering from early losses. Big gains in mining stocks limited the pan-European benchmark's losses, as Fresnillo, Kazakhmys, Rio Tinto and Vedanta rose between 3.7 and 7.8 percent. Copper futures gained 2.2 percent.
