By Julien Ponthus and Kit Rees
LONDON (Reuters) - European shares were flat on Friday, with corporate earnings not doing enough to lift the somber mood of the previous session when a stronger euro weighed heavily on exporters.
The hangover from Thursday's European Central Bank's policy meeting, which pushed the euro close to a two-year high, saw the pan-European STOXX 600 at a standstill.
"While earnings seasons over the past year have typically started strong before turning worse, the current season is off to a decidedly weak start", Deutsche Bank's equity strategist Wolf von Rotberg, said.
And the strength of the euro would weigh on stocks, he said: "The majority of Q2 reports so far have been released by non-euro earners (mostly Scandinavian), with only 6 percent of euro earners having reported".
"FX strength is set to weigh on euro earners’ results, which will likely contribute to subdued beat ratios for the remainder of the season", von Rotberg added.
All major European bourses were flat or slightly down, although a number of blue chips swung into the black thanks to positive earnings updates.
Vodafone reported better-than-expected revenue growth in its first quarter, and was up 2.3 percent.
The world's second largest mobile operator shares boosted the telco index which was the best performing sector with a 0.5 percent rise.
Deal-making also triggered some large gains, with payments firm Paysafe surging 8.6 percent after receiving a bid from Blackstone (NYSE:BX) and CVC Capital Partners.
But French car parts maker Valeo (PA:VLOF) was down 3.9 percent following its first-half earnings and contributed to a fall in the sector of 0.7 percent, the worst performance by sector in Europe.
Philips Lighting, the world's largest maker of lights, also fell 7.6 percent after publishing its second-quarter results.
The travel and leisure sector was up 0.2 percent after heavy losses in the previous sessions, due notably to falls in Germany's Lufthansa and the British budget airline easyJet (LON:EZJ).