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* STOXX 600 closes best week since November
* Prosus slides as China regulator fines Tencent
* Burberry sees strong sales rebound
(Adds comments, updates prices throughout)
By Sruthi Shankar and Shreyashi Sanyal
March 12 (Reuters) - Rising bond yields dragged European
stocks lower on Friday, although major bourses were set for
weekly gains as stimulus and vaccination programmes spurred
hopes of a solid economic recovery.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.3% after a
four-session winning streak drove it to pre-pandemic highs a day
earlier. The index posted weekly gains of 3.5%, its best
performance since November.
Tame U.S. inflation data and signs from the European Central
Bank that it was ready to accelerate money-printing to keep a
lid on borrowing costs helped boost risk appetite this week.
"It's not quite the end to the week that investors had
hoped," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell
"However, markets are still ahead on the week and the recent
sell-off in tech stocks looks like it has stabilised, which is
important for investor sentiment."
With government bond yields in the United States and Europe
rising again on Friday, investors took some money off the table.
"On one hand, we had the ECB that tried to talk down yields,
but at the same time we had the final approval of the big Biden
stimulus package that drove U.S. yields somewhat higher again,"
said Bert Colijn, senior euro zone economist at ING.
U.S. President Joe Biden signed a $1.9 trillion stimulus
bill into law on Thursday, with direct deposits from the
legislation expected to go to Americans as early as this
weekend.
While the stimulus is expected to give a boost to the U.S.
economy, it has also raised worries about a spike in inflation
that could push central banks to tighten monetary policy.
The tech sector fell the most in Europe, down 2.1%,
while automakers and miners also weighed.
Dutch tech investor Prosus, which holds a third of
Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings, dropped 6.7% as
China's market regulator fined 12 companies, including Tencent,
related to deals that demonstrated illegal monopolistic
behaviours.
German carmaker Daimler declined 1.9% after
French rival Renault sold its entire stake in the
company at a discount.
BMW fell 1.3% after saying its operating profit
for 2020 fell due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite a strong
second-half rebound in sales.
British luxury group Burberry jumped 6.9% to the
top of STOXX 600 after saying it had seen a strong rebound in
sales since December.
Italy's Brunello Cucinelli surged 8.2% after the
luxury goods maker raised its sales forecast for the year on
expectations that the end of the pandemic was near.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Devik Jain in Bengaluru;
Editing by Subhranshu Sahu, Anil D'Silva and Dan Grebler)
