European stock markets posted profit-taking losses Friday amid mixed early trading on Wall Street.
The British FTSE 100 index lost 0.66 percent to 4,489.7 points, the German DAX 30 index dropped 0.59 percent to 3,985.21 points and the French CAC 40 dipped 0.41 percent to 3,674.28 points.
The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index of leading eurozone shares slipped 0.67 percent to 2,787.48 points.
The euro stood at US$1.1984.
As European markets closed, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.42 percent in New York while the technology-heavy NASDAQ composite slipped 0.32 percent. The Standard and Poor's 500 gained 0.24 percent.
The Tokyo stock market, which had been closed on Thursday for a public holiday, fell on Friday, with the Nikkei-225 index down 2.02 percent to 11,761.79 points.
Dealers were unsettled by US economic data released a day earlier showing a lower-than-expected 4.2-percent annual growth rate in the first quarter and a strong key measure of inflation.
The figures "left a nasty aftertaste, in our view, with slightly softer than expected first-quarter growth and far higher than expected inflation," analysts at Nomura Securities told clients.
"The bond market is on alert again and US equities saw some selling."
In London shares in WPP Group dipped 2.5 percent to £5.56 after the world's third-largest advertising company released a trading update showing that revenues grew by almost 6 percent in the three months to March.
Stripping out the effect of currency movements, notably a weakening of the dollar, first-quarter revenues increased by over 12 percent, said WPP, home to advertising agencies Young and Rubicam and J Walter Thompson.
Shares in the British bank Abbey National rallied 2.89 percent to £4.445 after the Financial Times reported that the home-loan specialist had received a bid approach from Spain's Banco Santander Central Hispano.
In Paris, meanwhile, shares in Alcatel shed 4.31 percent to 12.43 euros after the French telecommunications equipment maker raised its full-year sales outlook after returning to profitability in the first quarter.
Shares in Euro Disney plunged 4.55 percent to 0.42 euros after the French theme park operator, which has until May 31 to reach a new deal with banks on its debt, said net losses widened by 32 percent in the six months to March.
In Amsterdam, the AEX index fell 0.61 percent to 341.41, the Swiss SMI slipped 0.16 percent to 5,774.4, in Milan the Mib 30 was off 0.28 percent at 28,144, in Madrid the Ibex-35 was down 0.61 percent to 8,109.5 and in Brussels the Bel-20 closed at 2,439.61, down 0.23 percent.
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