LONDON, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Disappointing third-quarter results from Bank of America and General Electric and weak U.S. consumer sentiment survey dragged European shares lower on Friday from a one-year high.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index provisionally closed 0.6 percent lower at 1,011.19 points after trading as high as 1,026.43 in the morning session -- its highest level since Oct. 7, 2008.
But results from Bank of America and U.S. conglomerate General Electric took away the positive momentum created by IBM and Google earnings figures overnight.
"The bar has been raised. You could have effectively announced poor results in Q2 and then the stock would be up 5 percent," said Robert Quinn, European strategist at Standard & Poor's equity research.
Financials were the top losers in Europe, with Deutsche Bank
Concerns over corporate earnings and the strength of the
economic recovery also took the shine off mining shares as well
as raw material prices. BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Anglo American, Xstrata, Vedanta
Resources and Eurasian Natural Resources lost 0.5-2.2 percent. The index, which slumped 45 percent last year, is up more
than 21 percent in 2009 and has surged 56.7 percent since
hitting a record low in early March.
(Reporting by Dominic Lau, editing by Atul Prakash)