Europe shares close lower; energy, banks weigh

LONDON May 11 (Reuters) - European shares closed lower on Monday as investors locked in profits after a main stock index hit a four-month high on Friday, with banks and energy stocks taking the most points off the index. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top shares provisionally closed 1.4 percent lower at 853.70 points. The index is up about 32 percent since hitting a record low in early March.

"What we have here is a bit of profit taking. Everything had got slightly over excited. Technically, equity markets have been overbought ... I suppose we have got a bit of a reality check kicking in," said Jim Wood-Smith, head of research at Williams de Broe.

Banks were among the biggest fallers, although stocks within the sector were mixed. Standard Chartered (STAN.L), Nordea Bank (NDA.ST), Banco Santander (SAN.MC) and Societe Generale (SOGN.PA) fell 1-6.4 percent.

HSBC (HSBA.L) recovered from earlier falls to gain 0.1 percent. Europe's biggest bank said first-quarter profits were "well ahead" of last year, swelled by record results in its investment bank, but would have been down without accounting gains on its debt. [ID:nLB716280]

Energy stocks were lower as crude CLc1 fell 1.5 percent. BG Group (BG.L), BP (BP.L), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and Total (TOTF.PA) were down 1.3-2.9 percent.

AstraZeneca (AZN.L) rose 5.5 percent after its experimental heart drug Brilinta beat Sanofi-Aventis (SASY.PA) and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co's (BMY.N) blockbuster Plavix in a pivotal clinical trial. [ID:nLB630992]

Sanofi-Aventis was down 1.1 percent.

Across Europe, the FTSE 100 .FTSE index was down 0.6 percent, Germany's DAX .GDAXI was 1 percent lower and France's CAC 40 .FCHI was down 1.9 percent.