European shares hover below record high, telecom stocks jump

European stocks hovered below record highs on Tuesday as caution ahead of a European Central Bank meeting later this week offset gains in the telecoms sector following a Deutsche Telekom deal.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index  slipped 0.1% by 0719 GMT, after coming just a point below its record high in the previous session.

Media and utilities fell the most among sectors, while telecoms  gained 0.8%.

Deutsche Telekom rose 2.5% after it struck a share-swap deal with Softbank Group (9984.T) to increase its stake in U.S. unit T-Mobile (TMUS.O) and sold its Dutch unit. read more

Shares in Sweden’s Tele2  rose 1%, while KPN (KPN.AS) gained almost 4%.

Germany’s Allianz slipped 0.5% after Reuters reported that regulators have launched an investigation into the company after the demise of some of its U.S. investment funds last year

Lucy Harlow

Lucy Harlow is a senior Correspondent who has been reporting about Equities, Commodities, Currencies, Bonds etc across the globe for last 10 years. She reports from New York and tracks daily movement of various indices across the Globe