By Sarah Turner

European shares hovered around 18-month highs on Friday, as a retreat in earnings optimism and a second day of disruption for air travel offset gains for SKF and auto makers.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index traded flat at 272.06 after gaining for the last two sessions.

Earnings from companies such as Intel helped shares to gain early in the week but Google and AMD shares slipped in after-hours trading late Thursday after reporting results.

European technology shares were weak on Friday, with ASM International shares down 1.5%.

Shares of Nokia (NOK), which is due to report results next week, lost 0.7%. Ericsson (ERICY) shares edged down 0.3%, pulling back from early small gains made after Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications said it swung to a first-quarter profit.

Airlines were struggling, with SAS down 2.4%, Deutsche Lufthansa shares down 2% and Air France-KLM shares down 1.8% as a volcanic ash cloud moving over Europe from Iceland continued to halt traffic.

The U.K. FTSE 100 index lost 0.1% to 5,821.12, the German DAX index traded flat at 6,294.12 and the French CAC-40 index traded up 0.2% at 4,074.52.

Losses from technology stocks also pressured shares in Asian trading, while U.S. stock futures were pointing to mild losses on Wall Street, with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures down 11 points.

The euro (CUR_EURUSD) declined 0.2% to $1.3548 against the dollar, with Greece's fiscal deficit problems still a concern, while sterling (CUR_GBPUSD) lost 0.2% to $1.5449 after an opinion poll gave Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg victory in last night's televised debate.

Helping support the French index, supermarket giant Carrefour climbed 3.2% after it posted a 5.5% increase in first-quarter revenue to 23.96 billion euros and said that it will buy back up to 6% of its shares.

Latin American growth of 9.6% and Asian growth of 1.6% helped offset a 0.6% downturn in France and a 2.4% drop from Europe ex-France, the firm said.

"Carrefour's first quarter was encouraging, with end demand beginning to stabilize across G4 markets," said James Grzinic, an analyst at Jefferies.

Shares of Swedish industrial group SKF jumped 8.1%.

It brought the announcement of its "well ahead of market estimates" first-quarter results forward after pretax profit jumped to 1.5 billion Swedish kroner, from 531 kroner last year, as sales at its automotive business improved.

Growth in European new-car registrations picked up pace in March, driven by strong gains in Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy and France, according to ACEA data.

Daimler (DAI) shares were up 1.1% and BMW shares rose 1.3%.

-Sarah Turner; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com