European Stocks Drop On Half-Day Christmas Session

December 24, 2008 6:34 a.m. EST

London, UK (AHN) - No merry opening for the stocks on European markets on Wednesday, a last trading day of the week with a half-day session time.

Shares dropped led by the region's resources and energy companies as recession in major economies is likely to dampen the demad of oil and metals from consumer firms and producers.

The market analysts and traders are still concerned that the deepening recession in the region as it will trail into 2009 and push financial companies to report more writedowns in the next few quarters and lower fiscal full-year earnings.

The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 turned negative and closed down by 0.14 percent to 193.05 on Tuesday at 11:19 p.m. GMT, extending the year-to-date losses to 46.39 percent so far this year.

At 10:40 a.m., in late morning trade session, London's FTSE 100 index was trading lower by 45.21 points or 1.06 percent at 4,210.77 points. Frankfurt's DAX was decreasing by 9.64 points or 0.21 percent at 4,629.38 points.

At the same time, the CAC 40 in Paris was trading lower by 22.15 points or 0.71 percent at 3,106.26 points.

Crude oil for February dropped and has been trading below $39 a barrel in New York after falling to the multi-year record low level yesterday following the weak results of housing report as prices of homes tumbled.

In the energy sector, shares of BP PLC, which is region's second-largest oil company, decreased by 1.6 percent, followed by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the largest in the region, dipping by 1 percent.

Among drugmakers, AstraZeneca led the decline in the sector by 1.9 percent drop after the company the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked for more clarifications on its application for Seroquel XR, which is formulated to treat major depressive disorder in adults.

Shares of GlaxoSmithKline moved down by 1.3 percent, followed by Sanofi-Aventis dropping by 0.7 percent in the region.

The markets across the world have lost value of shares by as much as $31 trillion.