Stocks: Tuesday’s review

European stocks declined for a third day, with the Stoxx Europe 600 Index (SXXP) sliding to its lowest level in almost seven weeks as results from companies including Alfa Laval AB and D.E Master Blenders (DE) 1753 NV disappointed investors.

Alfa Laval and D.E Master Blenders fell at least 5 percent each. Mulberry Group Plc (MUL) plunged 24 percent after unexpectedly saying profit will fall. Chemical makers including Arkema SA (AKE) tumbled after DuPont Co.’s earnings lagged forecasts.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 1.7 percent to 268.40 at the close of trading, its lowest level since Sept. 5.

European stocks fell yesterday as investors speculated that Spain will face less pressure to seek a bailout after a victory in regional elections for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

Moody’s Investors Service lowered its credit rating on Catalonia and four other Spanish regions. The decision was “driven by the deterioration in their liquidity positions, as evidenced by their very limited cash reserves as of September 2012 and their significant reliance on short-term credit lines to fund operating needs,” the ratings company said.

National benchmark indexes fell in all of the 18 western European markets except Iceland.

FTSE 100 5,799.95 -82.96 -1.41% CAC 40 3,405.84 -77.41 -2.22% DAX 7,173.85 -154.20 -2.10%   

Alfa Laval (ALFA) slipped 5.7 percent to 116.80 kronor. The company reported third-quarter order intake of 7.29 billion kronor ($1.1 billion), missing the estimates of Deutsche Bank AG and UBS AG. Alpha Laval said it sees fourth-quarter demand in line with or lower than that of the third quarter.

D.E Master Blenders, the coffee and tea company spun off by Sara Lee Corp. in June, lost 5.3 percent to 9.28 euros after it posted first-quarter revenue that missed analyst estimates as price increases in Germany led consumers to reduce purchases. Revenue fell 1.5 percent to 645 million euros in the three months through September, the company said. Analysts had expected sales of 664 million euros.

Mulberry tumbled 24 percent to 1,006 pence. The British luxury-handbag maker said in an unscheduled announcement that profit will fall because of declining shipments to wholesale customers. Pretax profit will rise to 41.8 million pounds ($66.9 million) in the fiscal year through March.

Burberry Plc (BRBY), the largest U.K. luxury-goods maker, slid 3.2 percent to 1,134 pence.

Norsk Hydro ASA (NHY), Europe’s third-largest aluminum maker, retreated 5.2 percent to 25.48 kroner. The company posted a third-quarter net loss of 277 million kroner ($49 million), compared with a profit of 997 million kroner a year earlier. That surpassed a loss estimate of 142 million kroner.

Nokia Oyj (NOK1V) fell 5.1 percent to 2.05 euros. The mobile-phone maker trying to cope with falling sales and dwindling cash will sell 750 million euros of convertible bonds to address approaching debt maturities.

Michelin & Cie (ML) added 3.4 percent to 63.97 euros. The world’s second-largest tiremaker said third-quarter revenue rose 5.7 percent to 5.44 billion euros, beating the 5.31 billion-euro average of analyst.

Major U.S. stock indexes rebounded slightly from session lows, but still a significant drop of completed trades.

Today's decline, as well as Friday's, there has been broad-based (in the red all the main sectors and almost all the components of the index DOW) and runs at higher volumes.

The pressure on the indices are weak quarterly reports.

Today, prior to the regular session of the financial statements for the third quarter released 3M (MMM), DuPont (DD) and United Technologies (UTX). Data reports the Giants were quite weak compared with the forecasts. Particularly adverse market participants perceived lowering forecasts for the full 2012 fiscal year, which made all the three above mentioned companies.

Today's reports reaffirmed the trend of the season quarterly report, according to which the financial performance of companies of the real sector of the economy in the last quarter of the reporting out much worse than those for the sector of finance. Against this background, the U.S. improved macroeconomic performance, which can be observed in recent years can not hold the index of the decline.

Almost all the components of the index DOW are in the red. More than the others fell in the share price E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (DD, -9.61%), 3M Co. (MMM, -4.14%), Alcoa, Inc. (AA, -3.41%), Chevron Corporation (CVX, -3.07%), Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ, -2.99%).

Above zero are still only stock Intel (INTC, +0.71%) and Microsoft (MSFT, 0.20%).

All sectors are in the red zone. The largest drop demonstrates the basic materials sector (-2.4%), and conglomerates sector (-2.6%). At the same time, the smallest decline shows utilities and technology sector, which fell by 0.9% to 1.0% respectively.

At the close:

Dow -243.28 13,103.06 -1.82%

Nasdaq -26.50 2,990.46 -0.88%

S & P -20.69 1,413.13 -1.44%