By Kit Rees
LONDON (Reuters) - European equities edged lower on Tuesday following a subdued start to the week due to falls among miners and travel, while results spurred some large moves in Nokian and Pandora in otherwise thin summer trading.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 0.1 percent, as were blue chips. Britain's FTSE 100 was also down 0.1 percent, and Germany's DAX traded flat.
Falls in consumer stocks weighed, as did the basic resources sector which was down 0.3 percent as weaker-than-expected trade data from the world's biggest consumer of metals, China, weighed on the underlying price of copper.
While moves in the index were muted, earnings were behind some sizeable price action among single stocks.
"The European earnings season is not disappointing. There are pockets of weakness, but on the whole it is coming in slightly better than the five-year average," Ken Odeluga, market analyst at City Index, said.
"That seems to be reassuring investors who had been concerned about the effect of the euro on ... annual earnings, which is probably the main worry of the moment and that's probably the main reason why you're seeing a pull-back in European markets after the strong start to the year."
Results hit shares in jewelry maker Pandora, which slumped 8 percent after second quarter results lagged estimates.
Falls in Paddy Power Betfair and InterContinental Hotels Group weighed on the European travel and leisure sector, which was the biggest sectoral faller with a decline of 0.9 percent.
Finnish tire maker Nokian soared 6.4 percent, however, set for its best day in nine months after reporting better-than-expected quarterly profit on improved Russian demand, and raising its forecast.
Swiss healthcare stock Vifor Pharma was another top riser, jumping nearly 5 percent after raising its outlook on the back of a surge in iron deficiency drug sales in the first half.
German power plant and energy trading group Uniper gained around 3 percent after it lifted its outlook for operating profit and dividend.
So far around 70 percent of MSCI Europe companies have reported second quarter earnings, of which more than 60 percent have either met or beaten analysts’ expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.
The figure is around the same for euro zone firms.
Analysts at Deutsche Bank (DE:DBKGn) pointed to a strong performance for European financials in the quarter, of which 67 percent have either met or beaten expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.
"The sector is seeing a broad-based earnings recovery, benefiting from improving net interest income on the back of accelerating loan growth, lower provisions (e.g. French names), better fee income (e.g. Dutch banks) and solid wealth management results (in particular Swiss names)," strategists at Deutsche Bank said in a note.