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* Commerzbank gets ECB nod for share buyback

* Philips drops on FDA 'most serious' tag on device recall

* STOXX 600 down 0.3%

Dec 21 (Reuters) - European shares fell on Thursday, led by losses in real estate and automobiles stocks, as a rally in global stocks stalled and investors awaited crucial U.S. economic growth data later in the day.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.3% by 0935 GMT, on track to snap a two-day streak of gains and mirroring declines in its regional peers.

The automobile and parts index was the biggest decliner, with a 1% fall, while rate-sensitive real estate stocks slipped 0.8%.

Basic resources shares were an outlier and managed to eke out a 0.3% gain as gold prices climbed.

Germany's DAX index was down 0.4% in early trade. German retailers' sentiment clouded over in December, according to a survey released on Thursday, as Christmas shopping failed to offer a boost and expectations for the coming months remained gloomy.

Thursday's dip in European stocks followed a slump in Wall Street's main indexes the day before, which had stalled a sharp rally in global shares driven by bets for interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve as early as March.

"There's a clear divergence between the Fed's own signals and market pricing, which has remained even as several officials have actively pushed back on the reaction since the Federal Open Market Committee last week," analysts at Deutsche Bank said in a note.

The European Central Bank's (ECB) Vice President, Luis de Guindos, said on Thursday it was too early to talk about interest rate cuts.

Markets will now closely track comments from the ECB's chief economist, Philip Lane, due to speak around 1600 GMT, to gauge the interest rate trajectory for the euro zone.

The final estimates for U.S. third-quarter gross domestic product and the weekly jobless claims report later in the day are also on the radar for more clues on the Fed's rate stance.

In corporate news, Swisscom shares lost 0.6% after a report that the telecom firm was weighing a bid for Vodafone's Italian business early next year.

The broader telecommunications index was down 0.3%.

Commerzbank topped the STOXX 600, rising 2.7% after the German lender received approval from the ECB to buy back up to 600 million euros ($656.88 million) in shares.

Shares in drugmaker Argenx dropped 2.9%, extending a decline of over 25% in the previous session, when the company announced that its autoimmune drug failed a study.

Dutch medical devices maker Philips lost 1.5% after the U.S. FDA classified the recall of its medical imaging devices as most serious.

(Reporting by Khushi Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman and Devika Syamnath)