EUROPE MARKETS: European Stocks Sag As Sports Direct, Insurers Fall

By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European stocks turned lower Tuesday, extending recent losses as investors globally turned to concerns about stock valuations , which triggered another hard day of selling on Wall Street.

The Stoxx Europe 600 slipped 0.3% to 334.02. The index on Monday fell 1.4%, marking its first loss in nine sessions. That dropped arrived after U.S. high-growth stocks fell sharply, driving selloffs in the broader market and overseas. U.S. stock futures saw a thin grip on gains dissipate ahead of Wall Street's open later.

On both the Stoxx Europe 600 and the FTSE 100 index, shares of Sports Direct International PLC were among those logging the biggest declines. They fell 6.2% after reports that British billionaire Mike Ashley sold shares worth more than 200 million pounds ($322 million) in the sportswear retailer. The sale comes after a more than GBP70 million bonus package for Ashley didn't find enough support among shareholders.

The package would have given Ashley, the company's founder, eight million ordinary shares.

Insurance shares also moved lower, with the group still hurting after a proposal in the U.K. budget would end a rule that required pension funds to be used to buy annuities, an important source of business for some insurance companies, said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade, in a telephone interview.

The proposal unveiled by U.K. finance minister George Osborne last month "is completely a game changer" for the industry, said Aslam, adding that shares of Prudential PLC and Aviva PLC have been among the hardest hit. Prudential on Tuesday dropped 2% and Aviva lost 1.1%.

But on the upside for the pan-European index, stock in Bouygues SA climbed 1.8% following a report that telecom operator Iliad SA is in talks to buy Bouygues's mobile phone unit. Illiad also rose, by 1.3%. Bouygues was the strongest advancer on France's CAC 40 . The index, however, was down about 0.3 points at 4,421.30.

Iliad is prepared to pay 5 billion euros ($6.9 billion) for Bouygues Telecom, the third-biggest mobile phone operator in France, according to a report in Le Parisien, which cited an unidentified source. Bouygues is seeking 8 billion euros, the report added. Iliad denied the talks, according to the report. Bouygues shares on Monday stumbled 6% after the company's bid for Vivendi SA's French mobile unit was rejected in favor of an offer from Altice SA.

The FTSE 100 index fell 0.5% to 6,586.82, and Germany's DAX 30 fell 0.3% to 9,476.91.

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