Nokia leads fallers in Europe stocks Nokia shares suffered heavy losses on Friday morning reaching a low not seen since 1996. The shares sank 7.3 per cent to €2.47, one day after the struggling Finnish mobile phone maker's annual shareholder meeting in Helsinki at which Risto Siilasmaa, the newly appointed chairman, had to defend a turnaround strategy to angry investors. Fashion retailer H&M suffered losses, with shares tumbling 5.7 per cent to SKr225.90. The Swedish retailer approved a dividend of SKr 9.50 per share at its annual general meeting on Thursday. The FTSE Eurofirst 300 index fell 0.5 per cent to 1,039.04 in morning trading, ahead of key jobs data out of the US and a potentially volatile weekend of elections in France and Greece. "Confidence is still very fragile," Robert Parkes, UK equity strategist at HSBC, said about the lack of direction in markets this week. Norwegian insurer Gjensidige made the largest gains on the Eurofirst 300. Shares jumped 5.2 per cent to €2.48 after the company said pre-tax profit for the first three months of the year had risen by three quarters. Legrand , the French electrical fittings and switches maker, climbed 3.7 per cent to €26.52, after it announced that first quarter sales fell 0.9 per cent on a like-for-like basis to €1.09bn, in line with expectations. In Madrid, the IBEX 35 rose 1.4 per cent to 6,950.7 with Spanish banks leading the gains and recovering from two sessions of heavy losses. BBVA led gains, with shares climbing 3.9 per cent to €5.08. Italian banks led gains on the FTSE MIB index, which was up 0.7 per cent at 14,213.52. Banco Popolare was the biggest gainer, with shares rising 3.5 per cent to €1.05. Technip led the fallers in Paris, where the CAC 40 index was down 0.4 per cent to 3,223.02. The engineering firm's shares fell 2.3 per cent to €83. In Frankfurt, the Xetra Dax index fell 0.2 per cent to 6,683.8. E.ON led the fall, with shares dropping 5.5 per cent to €16.23.