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European shares briefly turn positive; banks up

Fri Jul 10, 2009 5:00am EDT

Stocks

   

LONDON, July 10 (Reuters) - European shares briefly turned positive in morning trade on Friday after Commerzbank (CBKG.DE) extended gains on news that the company saw improving trends in the second quarter, but weaker oil stocks weighed on the market.

The FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top European shares was down 0.1 percent at 822.87 points after rising as high as 824.42 earlier in the session.

Commerzbank rose 3 percent, while Standard Chartered (STAN.L), Barclays (BARC.L), Lloyds (LLOY.L), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) and Societe Generale (SOGN.PA) were up 0.4-2 percent.

Energy stocks tracked crude oil prices CLc1, which fell 0.3 percent. BP (BP.L), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSb.L), BG Group (BG.L), Tullow Oil (TLW.L), Total (TOTF.PA) and StatoilHydro (STL.OL) shed between 0.2 and 0.9 percent. (Reporting by Atul Prakash in London and Christoph Steitz in Frankfurt)



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