LONDON, May 22: Europe's main stock markets showed mixed fortunes on Tuesday, mirroring the showing by Wall Street overnight.

The airline sector was in focus as British Airways said it had joined a consortium interested in buying Spanish carrier Iberia, amid consolidation of Europe's airline sector.

In late morning trade, London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares fell 0.13 per cent to 6,628.00 points.

Frankfurt's DAX 30 rose 0.47 per cent to 7,655.33 points and in Paris the CAC 40 edged up 0.08 per cent to 6,095.05, nearing the half-way mark.The euro eased to 1.3446 dollars.

Wall Street's broad-market index flirted with a new all-time high on Monday but came up short as a rally fuelled by a fresh round of corporate dealmaking faded late in the day.

The market ended mixed amid some consolidation late in the day as the Standard and Poor's 500 index missed smashing its record close from March 2000.

The share price in British Airways slid 1.88 per cent to 471 pence in London after the group announced it had teamed up with a consortium led by US investment fund Texas Pacific Group (TPG) with a view to bidding for Iberia.

BA, which already owns 10 per cent of Iberia's shares, said it was examining a joint bid with TPG, Vista Capital, Inversiones Ibersuizas and Quercus Equity, but there was no guarantee that this would actually lead to an offer for the Spanish carrier.

In the retail sector, Marks and Spencer dropped by 3.79 per cent to 710.5 pence in London on profit-taking after the British clothing-to-food retailer posted strong full-year results and warned of a difficult 2007-08.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite climbed 0.80 per cent to 2,578.79 points and the broad-market SP gained 0.15 per cent to 1,525.10, just shy of its all-time high of 1,527.46.—AFP