European shares halt 3-day rally; Italy GDP eyed

PARIS (Reuters) - European stocks slightly fell on Monday, halting a sharp three-day rally as last week's strong U.S. jobs data dampens expectation of further stimulus from the Federal Reserve, which holds its latest meeting this week.

Investors were also bracing for Italy's final fourth-quarter gross domestic product, expected to fall 0.7 percent on the quarter and 0.5 percent year-on-year, highlighting the dire state of parts of the euro zone economy.

"Now that we've had a deal on Greece, the focus turns to other weak euro zone countries: Italy, Portugal and Spain. The overall sentiment is not necessarily bearish, but there are a few obstacles preventing indexes from topping recent highs," a Paris-based trader said.

At 0804 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 <.fteu3> index of top European shares was down 0.3 percent at 1,075.89 points, after gaining 2.6 percent in three sessions.

Shares in mining and steel companies lost ground along with metal prices on nagging worries over sluggish demand from China.

Rio Tinto was down 1.5 percent and Xstrata down 1.3 percent.

(Reporting by Blaise Robinson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/european-shares-halt-3-day-rally-italy-gdp-080948298.html

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