Europe shares turn negative; pharma, insurers weigh

European equities turned negative in afternoon trade on Thursday, tracking a fall in U.S. stocks, with weaker drugmakers and insurers weighing on the market.

By 1427 GMT, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was down 0.4 percent at 855.22 points after rising as high as 878.08 points.

Drugmaker Novo Nordisk fell 2.9 percent, Shire was down 0.8 percent and Novartis fell 0.9 percent.

Banks were mixed.

HSBC rose 5.2 percent, Natixis gained 4.4 percent and Commerzbank was up 9.5 percent, but Lloyds tumbled 11.7 percent and Royal Bank of Scotland lost 5.5 percent.

The European Central Bank cut its interest rate to a record low and said it would buy covered bonds issues by companies in the Euro Zone.

The ECB cut its main interest rate by 25 basis points to a low of 1.0 percent and said it has decided to lend banks unlimited funds for up to 12 months, pulling out all the stops to boost the euro zone economy.

Earlier, the Bank of England also stepped up its campaign to boost the struggling UK economy, raising the size of its asset purchase programme by an extra 50 billion pounds to spur bank lending.

The BoE, however, kept its lending rates at a record low of 0.5 percent.