AMSTERDAM (AFX) - Shares in Amsterdam traded broadly lower at midday, closely mirroring lower Dow futures amid a dearth of guiding company news, while Grolsch fell after a rating downgrade, dealers said.
At 12.15 pm, the AEX was down 0.36 pct or 1.72 points to 471.60, after opening at 473.75 and reaching an earlier high of 475.18.
Government bonds traded flat to lower, while the euro stood at 1.3315 usd versus 1.3317 usd late Friday.
Investors moved into more defensive shares as the Dow futures went lower, and ahead of a heap of macro-economic news from Europe and the US later in the week, which may have a negative effect on the US dollar, dealers said.
Second-liner Grolsch fell 4.15 pct to 30 eur following a downgrade to 'hold' from 'buy' at ING. The brokerage anticipates bad tidings for Grolsch' position in the US beer market as InBev last week inked a sales and marketing deal with Anheuser-Busch, which ING expects to result in more competition for Grolsch in the US.
Reed Elsevier led blue chip gainers, adding 0.78 pct to 12.85 eur, while Ahold firmed 0.55 pct to 7.36 eur, benefiting from news that it will sell its Polish retail operations to Carrefour for 375 mln eur, which is higher than some brokerages had estimated.
TNT added 0.26 pct to 31.31 eur and DSM lifted 0.28 pct to 35.88.
ING was off 0.67 pct to 31.29 eur, after rising earlier amid news that it is to sell its Dutch Regio Bank franchise to SNS Reaal for 50.5 mln eur, resulting in a net book gain of 25 mln eur for ING. SNS Reaal traded flat at 15.50 eur on local markets.
ASML shed 0.86 pct to 18.47 eur, Numico lost 1.25 pct to 37.82 and Getronics dropped 2.46 pct to 5.54 eur, leading blue chip decliners.
Among midcap shares, Wereldhave rose 1.45 pct to 94.50, LogicaCMG firmed 0.77 pct to 2.62 eur and Corio put on 0.98 pct to 56.70.
Ordina dropped 0.69 pct to 15.73 and Hunter Douglas shed 0.96 pct to 57 eur.
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