* FTSEurofirst 300 falls 0.8 percent
* Late recovery for crude, metals helps index pare losses
* Arcandor slumps as aid refused
By Brian Gorman
LONDON, June 8 (Reuters) - European shares closed lower on Monday as banks gave back some of their recent gains, though a late rally in commodities prices helped to limit the losses of mining and energy shares. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index fell 0.8 percent to 865.11 points, off the day's low of 857.39.
The index had risen for the past three out of four weeks and has gained 34 percent since hitting a lifetime low in early March.
"You'll see that the shares that have gone down today are the biggest winners of the last few weeks," said Ad van Tiggelen, senior strategist at ING Investment Management in Amsterdam.
"It's profit taking. I don't think anything specific has happened today -- I wouldn't read too much into it. Cyclicals and industrials are going down. Telecoms and pharmas are holding up."
Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Vedanta Resources and Xstrata fell between 2 and 4.7 percent, though metals prices were paring losses by the end of the session.
Lloyds Banking Group closed 7.7 percent lower after raising just under 3.5 billion pounds ($5.6 billion) from shareholders, which it will use to pay back some of the money injected by the British government last year.
Banco Santander, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale fell between 1.6 and 4 percent.
But Swedish banks reversed losses to move sharply higher after Latvia's coalition partners agreed to more budget cuts this year, a key requirement for additional loans from the IMF.
SEB rose 12 percent while rival Swedbank was up 7.4 percent.
The DJ Stoxx European banks index fell 1 percent, but has more than doubled from its March 9 low.
Wall Street was lower as European bourses were closing. The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were down between 1 and 1.4 percent.
Some traders pointed to rising bond yields. Yields on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury hit a seven-month high on Monday.
"(This) may mean we could be looking at interest rates rises ... so investors could also be cautious over that," said David Buik, partner at BGC Partners.
OILS SLIP
Energy stocks were another drag on the index. Crude oil fell back from last week's seven-month high of $70, but pared losses later in the session, trading above $68 a barrel. BG Group, Total and StatoilHydro lost between 1 and 2.8 percent.
Pharmaceuticals were among the best performers.
Novartis rose 1.7 percent after the Swiss drugmaker said its Afinitor medicine cut tumour size by 50 percent or more in a third of patients with lymphoma, in a mid-stage clinical trial.
AstraZeneca rose 0.4 percent.
Tourism and retail group Arcandor slumped 43.6 percent after Germany refused its request to tap the government's $160 billion rescue fund and took a hard line on a separate emergency state loan the retailer needs this week to avert bankruptcy.
However, the Government said Arcandor had one more chance to improve its bid.
Across Europe, the FTSE 100 closed 0.8 percent lower, Germany's DAX fell 1.4 percent and France's CAC 40 fell 1.5 percent.
"Markets don't go up in a straight line. And we may be range-bound for a while," said van Tiggelen.
"The valuation argument has disappeared. We're back at fair value. Data is sometimes better than expected, but still consistent with a recession. We need some positive news from the U.S. housing market" (Additional reporting by Joanne Frearson; Editing by David Holmes)