A total of around 860 billion euros ($1.13 trillion) has been wiped off thevalue of firms in the benchmark STOXX Europe 600 since U.S. FederalReserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on May 22 that a decision to scale back theFed's quantitative easing programme could come at one of the central bank's"next few meetings", Thomson Reuters data shows.
The pan-European STOXX 600, home of bellwethers such as Unilever,Royal Dutch Shell and Novartis, has dropped 11 percent sinceMay 22 and is on track to record its biggest monthly loss in nearly two years.
That slide has taken the combined market capitalisation of companies in theindex to 6.93 trillion euros over the same period.
Last week, Bernanke confirmed the Fed would begin winding down itsquantitative easing programme later this year, fuelling a worldwide selloff instocks, fixed income and commodities.
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Unilever (ULVR)
