LONDON, Oct 5: European stock markets receded on Wednesday, as the recent drop in oil prices weighed on the energy sector, and following sharp overnight falls on Wall Street, dealers said.
London’s FTSE 100 index slid 1.01 per cent to 5,439.10 points, the Frankfurt DAX 30 decreased 1.05 per cent at 5,084.06 points and in Paris the CAC 40 dipped 0.92 per cent at 4,607.25.
The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index of leading eurozone shares declined 0.91 per cent to 3,432.70 points.
Crude prices, which have since firmed, shed more than a dollar on Tuesday on signs that the United States might release more emergency stockpiles of crude.
The oil sector also remained under pressure from British oil giant BP’s warning on costs from the recent US Gulf Coast hurricane weather.
In London trade, BP sank 2.29 per cent to 640.5 pence, while BG Group lost 2.36pc to 516.5 pence.
Total shed 2.46 per cent to 218 euros in Paris trade.
The French oil giant continued to be plagued by a strike at its northern Gonfreville facility, the biggest refinery in the country.
Stock markets in London, Paris and Frankfurt have been reaching multi-year heights in recent times, following a string of positive corporate earnings and merger news.
London’s FTSE 100 closed above the 5,500-point level for the first time since August 2001 on Monday. The index remains some 21 per cent below its record high of 6,930.20 points reached in 1999 at the height of the dot.com bubble.
Elsewhere on Wednesday BPB, the world’s biggest plasterboard maker, slid 0.54 per cent to 737 pence in London trade.
BPB increased the cash it would return to shareholders and promised dividend increases to counter a hostile bid by French rival Saint-Gobain.
The announcement came after Britain’s Takeover Panel had frozen the regulatory timetable of the bid, giving Saint-Gobain until November 25 to change its 3.6-billion-pound offer.
Saint-Gobain lost 0.86 per cent to 48.23 euros in Paris.
Wall Street shares shed earlier gains to close lower on Tuesday on new fears of higher Federal Reserve interest rates and after a clutch of corporate profit warnings and a drop in crude prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.90 per cent at 10,441.11 points and the tech-rich Nasdaq was 0.75 percent lower at 2,139.36.
The broader Standard and Poor’s (S and P) 500 benchmark dropped 1.00 per cent to 1,214.47 points.—AFP
