LONDON, Aug 9: European stock markets fell on Wednesday, mirroring losses overnight by Wall Street on signals that the US Federal Reserve may soon increase interest rates again.European indices had opened higher before quickly falling into the red.

London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares dropped 0.47 per cent to 5,790.50 points, Frankfurt's DAX 30 index slid 0.49 per cent to 5,623.99 points and in Paris the CAC 40 lost 0.25 per cent to 4,955.49.

The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index of leading eurozone shares decreased 0.25 per cent to 3,658.93 points.

The euro stood at $1.2865.

US stocks had closed lower on Tuesday after the Federal Reserve brought its rate hiking campaign of over two years to a halt, but traders voiced concerns over possible future rate hikes.

However Japanese share prices shot up Wednesday to a two-month high as the market was emboldened by booming machinery orders and brushed aside concern about US interest rates, dealers said.

London's FTSE 100 was meanwhile weighed down by the losses to the heavyweight mining sector. Hit by retreating commodity prices, anglo-Swiss mining group Xstrata shed 3.47 per cent to 2,140 pence and Anglo-Australian resources giant BHP Billiton tumbled 3.21 per cent to 966 pence.

The price of shares in the biggest British commercial television network ITV fell by 1.02 per cent to 97.25 pence after the group warned of further falls in advertising revenues in the short term.

In Frankfurt, Commerzbank dived 6.72 per cent to 26.23 euros after the second-biggest bank in Germany failed to meet expectations in the second quarter of the current year as a result of higher-than-expected restructuring costs.

In the period from April to June, Commerzbank's net profit rose by 63 per cent to 285 million euros ($365 million), falling short of analysts' forecasts of 337 million euros.

In New York on Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.41 per cent at 11,173.59 points and the technology-weighted Nasdaq index dropped 0.56 per cent to 2,060.85 points. The Standard and Poor's 500 broad-market index lost 0.34 per cent to 1,271.48.—AFP