Britain's FTSE 100 index fell 0.5 percent on Wednesday, led by banks, commodity shares and Vodafone as investors wary of the lingering credit turmoil cashed in on the previous day's rally. The FTSE 100 closed down 29.9 points at 5,880.1 in volatile trade, underperforming Germany's DAX and France's CAC-40, after surging 3.5 percent in the previous session.
"It's still very much the financial sector that has been hit hard. Other than that, profit-taking is the word I would use instead of panic selling. We have got a firm underlying tone on the market for the time being," a trader said.
Fuelling fears over the fallout of the credit crisis, British specialist mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley took a 94 million pound ($184 million) write-down on its exposure to tarnished assets. The mid-cap stock dived 23 percent, and soured sentiment towards financial shares in general.
Fellow mortgage lender Alliance & Leicester fell 7 percent and HBOS eased 1.2 percent. Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and Standard Chartered dipped between 0.1 and 1.3 percent.
Northern Rock, which has been Britain's most prominent victim of the credit crisis, lost 9 percent. Two suitors competing to rescue the ailing lender have been told to improve their offers to beat the alternative of nationalisation, sources familiar with the matter said.
Miners suffered along with weaker metals prices, with Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Vedanta Resources, Anglo American and Lonmin all down between 0.6 and 3.4 percent. In the oil and gas producer sector, BP shed 0.4 percent, BG Group fell 4.2 percent and Cairn Energy dipped 0.2 percent.
Nuclear power generator British Energy jumped 9 percent making it the best performer on the FTSE 100 as traders said its results were better than expected and it offered higher dividends.
Hedge fund group Man Group advanced 4 percent after it said the net asset value of its main AHL fund gained 1 percent last week. But index heavyweight Vodafone dropped 1.7 percent after gaining nearly 4 percent in the previous session, while GlaxoSmithKline, trading without the dividend, fell 1.4 percent.