Here is how major stock markets outside the United States ended on Tuesday.
Mixed comments by regulators on one of GlaxoSmithKline's experimental drugs, a profit warning from UK medical equipment maker Smith & Nephew, and a weak car sector offset pleasing news from mobile phone giant Nokia, which raised its third quarter guidance.
Worries that Germany's increasingly tight election race will result in a hung verdict on Sunday and delay much-awaited corporate and economic reform also hurt sentiment, with Frankfurt's DAX under-performing the rest of Europe.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index of pan-European blue chips shed 0.7 percent to end at 1,201.1 points, distancing itself from a near 40-month intraday high of 1,213.57 set on Monday. The narrower DJ Euro STOXX 50 index was 0.9 percent lower at 3,325.6 points.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index index rose 23.4 points, or 0.52 percent, to 4,495.1.