RTRS: Banks, commodities send Europe shares 4 pct lower
LONDON, Nov 19 (Reuters) - European stocks fell sharply on Wednesday, dragged down by banks and commodity shares that slipped on persistent worries that a global economic downturn would lower demand for crude oil and metals.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares closed provisionally closed 4 percent lower at 811.70 points. It has fallen about 45 percent this year, compared with gains in the previous five years.
Banks were the worst hit on Wednesday, with BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) shedding 12 percent, HSBC (HSBA.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) falling 8 percent, Barclays (BARC.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) down 13.5 percent and Societe Generale (SOGN.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) declining 8.2 percent.
"The outlook is still very poor and the profit warning from BASF didn't help sentiment," said Edmund Shing, strategist at BNP Paribas in Paris.
BASF (BASF.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world's top chemicals maker by revenue, cut its 2008 profit outlook for the second time in two months and said it would cut back production, citing a "massive" decline in demand in key industries. BASF shares were down 14.7 percent.
Across Europe, the FTSE 100 .FTSE index was down 5 percent, Germany's DAX .GDAXI was 5.2 percent lower and France's CAC 40 .FCHI was down 4.1 percent. Miners tracked weaker metals prices. BHP Billiton (BLT.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Anglo American (AAL.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Vedanta Resources (VED.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Lonmin (LMI.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Kazakhmys (KAZ.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Xstrata (XTA.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Antofagasta (ANTO.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Rio Tinto (RIO.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) fell between 6 and 18 percent.
"Everyone is staying very defensively positioned and no one is seeing any reason to become more aggressively positioned in risky assets like equities," said Shing. (Reporting by Atul Prakash)
