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By Bloomberg

European stocks declined as banks and health-care companies slid, resuming losses after the Stoxx Europe 600 Index snapped a six-day losing streak yesterday.

The Stoxx 600 dropped 0.7 percent to 326.74 at 8:10 a.m. in London. Gauges of bank and health-care stocks contributed the most to declines. The equity benchmark climbed the most since Dec. 5 yesterday, after fluctuating between gains and losses amid worse-than-forecast Chinese factory data and a rebound in oil and gas companies.

The index has fallen 5.9 percent this month as commodity prices slumped deeper into a bear market, dragging energy and mining shares lower, while political wrangling in Greece concerned investors.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras today puts forward his candidate for the Greek presidency -- Stavros Dimas -- in the first of three possible votes in parliament. Voting starts at about 7 p.m. in Athens. If Dimas isn’t elected, there are two more rounds of voting on Dec. 23 and Dec. 29.

Greek equities tumbled the most since 1987 on Dec. 9, triggering a European rout, on concern that failure to secure a president would lead to the government’s collapse and early elections, opening the door for the ascent of an anti-austerity party in Greek politics.

In the U.S., the Federal Reserve ends a two-day meeting today, with economists predicting that Russia’s currency crisis and plunging oil prices won’t stop policy makers from dropping a vow to keep interest rates low for a “considerable time.” Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures added 0.4 percent.

The euro area reports a final inflation reading for November today after weaker-than-estimated purchasing managers’ indexes in Germany and France, and a warning from Bank of England Governor Mark Carney that a global slowdown threatens financial stability.

Asian stocks dropped, with the MSCI Asia Pacific Index sliding 0.5 percent to its lowest level since Oct. 20.

Among stocks that moving on corporate news, Royal Philips NV slid 3.9 percent after agreeing to buy Volcano Corp. for $1 billion to boost its growth in image-guided treatments of the heart and blood vessels.

UCB SA dropped 2.9 percent after the sale of its U.S. generic-drug business to two private-equity firms for $1.53 billion fell apart.

Acciona SA slipped 1.4 percent as Expansion reported that the company’s contract to build a tunnel in Melbourne could be suspended by the new state government.