European shares hit a five-week closing low on Wednesday after lower-than-expected US durable goods orders and weak US new home sales data sparked worries over the prospects of a global economic recovery. Investor sentiment had earlier been knocked after Standard & Poor's late on Tuesday cut its ratings on Ireland and assigned the country a negative outlook, with Allied Irish Banks down 2.9 percent.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares closed 0.8 percent lower at 1,011.35 points after being as low as 1,001.83. Weaker-than-expected July orders for long-lasting US manufactured goods suggested a slowdown in manufacturing and new US single-family home sales unexpectedly fell in July to their slowest pace on record.
Miners featured among the biggest fallers. BHP Billiton fell 2 percent after it said it was cautious on the short-term outlook and that the economy in China, its biggest customer, would slow from recent highs.
Other miners Anglo American, Antofagasta, Rio Tinto and Xstrata slipped by between 1.4 and 3.4 percent. The Euro STOXX 50, the eurozone's blue chip index, was down 1 percent at 2,587.4 points, just above a key support level, the 23.6 percent retracement of the index's fall from a high in April to a low in May after piercing it earlier in the session.
Among individual stocks, Aggreko fell 5.8 percent, reversing gains from earlier in the session, as expected upgrades to full-year forecasts failed to materialise following first-half results. However, positive earnings results did limit the FTSEurofirst index from further falls. Serco rose 4.8 percent after the British outsourcing firm posted a 21 percent increase in half-year pretax profit. Across Europe, the FTSE 100 index was down 0.9 percent, Germany's DAX fell 0.6 percent and France's CAC 40 was 1.2 percent lower.
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