Falling Oil Hits Europe; Dollar Bounces By William Kemble-Diaz LONDON (Reuters) - Most European stock markets followed Wall Street lower Wednesday as crude oil's slide to three-month lows hit heavily weighted oil shares, although a recovering dollar was a plus for the region's exporters. U.S. light crude, at around $40.75 a barrel, has now fallen by around 27 percent from October's all-time high, spurring producer calls for a clampdown on excess output ahead of an OPEC policy review Friday. But mild winter weather in the United States and expectations that data at 1530 GMT will show another rise in U.S. heating fuel inventories was seen keeping oil on a slippery slope and hit stocks such as BP and Total. "There was a lot of anticipation of tight stocks and that inventories would get squeezed further but the cold weather hasn't materialized yet and we're in December. That's taken a lot of air out of the market," said John Brady at brokers ABN AMRO. Mining stocks such as Rio Tinto were also up against it after copper prices slumped to 5-week low and gold sank more than $7 to less than $445 a troy ounce in the response to the stronger dollar. The FTSEurofirst 300 index of leading European shares slipped 0.25 percent to 1,032 points. But Italy's MIB30 index bucked the weaker trend as equity investors cheered Telecom Italia's debt-financed plan to buy out its remaining shares in mobile phone arm TIM. U.S. shares were seen open slightly higher after falling sharply Tuesday as the lower oil price dragged down U.S. oil majors such as Exxon Mobil Corp.. DOLLAR REVIVAL The greenback rose 1 percent against the euro and yen as investors eyed the weak dollar's negative impact on the euro zone and Japanese economies and on end-of-year book-squaring. Currency strategists at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein said European managers of international bond funds had turned negative toward the euro after Friday's weak U.S. jobs data and taken profits on their previous long positions.     Continued ... Quelle "Falling Oil Hits Europe; Dollar Bounces" : reuters.com Main page for "Falling Oil Hits Europe; Dollar Bounces"