European stocks were little changed

European stocks were little changed as Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said local elections vindicated his austerity program while Japan’s exports tumbled.

In Spain, Rajoy extended his majority in the stronghold region of Galicia as voters offered some respite to his 10- month-old government and removed one obstacle to a European bailout. His party won 41 of the 75 seats in the regional assembly, allowing it to extend its majority in the northwestern region.

Japan’s exports slid 10.3 percent in September from a year earlier, leaving a trade deficit of 558.6 billion yen ($7 billion), the Finance Ministry said in Tokyo today. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of analysts was for a 9.9 percent export decline. The drop was the most since May 2011, two months after a magnitude-9 quake struck Japan’s northeast, triggering a tsunami and a nuclear disaster that led to the shuttering of most of the nation’s reactors.

Royal Philips Electronics NV climbed 4.5 percent after the world’s largest lighting company reported third-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates.

Veolia Environnement SA retreated 4.1 percent as Suez Environnement denied it’s working on a merger with its bigger rival.

FTSE 100 5,902.4 +6.25 +0.11%

CAC 40 3,510.64 +6.08 +0.17%

DAX 7,377.76 -2.88 -0.04%