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June 21 (Reuters) - Rising tensions between the United
States and Iran helped halt European stock market gains on
Friday after a strong run driven by signals from major central
banks that they are on the verge of more action to prop up a
slowing global economy.
The New York Times reported on Friday that U.S. President
Donald Trump had approved military strikes against Iran in
retaliation for shooting down a U.S. drone, before pulling back
from launching the attacks. That drove Asian stock markets lower overnight and kept the
pan-European STOXX 600 index .STOXX , up nearly 5% so far this
month, flat at opening.
The telecom sector was an outperformer, up 0.4% after
Telecom Italia TLIT.MI signed an agreement that opened the
door to talks on integrating its fiber optic network with that
of smaller rival Open Fiber, including a possible merger.