European stocks slipped on Wednesday, losing ground for the second session, as nagging worries over the global economic outlook and corporate profits kept investors on edge.
Shares in European peripheral countries led the retreat, with Spain's IBEX down 0.9 percent and Italy's FTSE MIB down 0.5 percent, with investors eager to book profits on shares from the two countries after a strong outperformance in the past five months.
German retailer Metro bucked the trend, up 3 percent and adding to the previous session's sharp gains, on news that Europe's fourth-biggest retailer is considering a stock market listing of its Russian unit.
Shares in TF1 also featured among the top gainers, up 5.4 percent after France qualified for the 2014 World Cup finals in a relief for the country's biggest private broadcaster.
At 1115 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 0.3 percent at 1,291.64 points, after losing 0.7 percent on Tuesday, while the euro zone's blue-chip Euro STOXX 50 index was down 0.4 percent at 3,037.32 points.
"More and more people are turning bearish, with the newsflow quite negative at the moment, just look at the figures from the OECD and the warning from (billionaire investor Carl) Icahn," said David Thebault, head of quantitative sales trading, at Global Equities.
"That said, the flow dynamics should remain quite strong for European equities, so it's not a bad idea to buy some 'calls' on indexes even if you're negative about the market."
On Tuesday, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development cut its forecast for global growth next year with a sharp downgrade of forecasts for a number of emerging economies such as Brazil and Russia, to which European blue-chips have a strong exposure.
Investors have also been rattled by comments from Icahn, who earlier this week said at the Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit that the stock market could see a "big drop" because earnings at many companies were fuelled more by low borrowing costs than management efforts to boost results.
European stocks have strongly rallied since late June, with the Euro STOXX 50 jumping 23 percent and the IBEX and MIB surging more than 30 percent, but the rally has lost steam over the past two weeks, hurt by concerns over the pace of economic growth as well as a batch of disappointing corporate results.
German retailer Metro bucked the trend, up 3 percent and adding to the previous session's sharp gains, on news that Europe's fourth-biggest retailer is considering a stock market listing of its Russian unit.
Shares in TF1 also featured among the top gainers, up 5.4 percent after France qualified for the 2014 World Cup finals in a relief for the country's biggest private broadcaster.
At 1115 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 0.3 percent at 1,291.64 points, after losing 0.7 percent on Tuesday, while the euro zone's blue-chip Euro STOXX 50 index was down 0.4 percent at 3,037.32 points.
"More and more people are turning bearish, with the newsflow quite negative at the moment, just look at the figures from the OECD and the warning from (billionaire investor Carl) Icahn," said David Thebault, head of quantitative sales trading, at Global Equities.
"That said, the flow dynamics should remain quite strong for European equities, so it's not a bad idea to buy some 'calls' on indexes even if you're negative about the market."
On Tuesday, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development cut its forecast for global growth next year with a sharp downgrade of forecasts for a number of emerging economies such as Brazil and Russia, to which European blue-chips have a strong exposure.
Investors have also been rattled by comments from Icahn, who earlier this week said at the Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit that the stock market could see a "big drop" because earnings at many companies were fuelled more by low borrowing costs than management efforts to boost results.
European stocks have strongly rallied since late June, with the Euro STOXX 50 jumping 23 percent and the IBEX and MIB surging more than 30 percent, but the rally has lost steam over the past two weeks, hurt by concerns over the pace of economic growth as well as a batch of disappointing corporate results.
