he pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 230.12, -1.54, -0.67%) declined 0.7% to 230.14. The index ended with a 1.8% loss on Tuesday, the first day of September and the second consecutive day of losses.
"September has historically been the trickiest month of the year for equity investors so yesterday's retreat should not be a big surprise," said Ian Williams, strategist at Altium Securities in London.
"Financials [were] the biggest losers," he added.
Banks and insurers weakened again on Wednesday, with ING Group (NL:INGA 9.72, -0.42, -4.14%) (ING 14.12, -0.95, -6.30%) shares down 4.4% in Amsterdam and KBC Group (BE:KBC 23.93, -1.33, -5.27%) shares down 5.4% in Brussels.
Santander (ES:SAN 10.27, -0.23, -2.14%) (STD 14.73, -0.70, -4.54%) shares fell 1.7% in Madrid and UniCredit (IT:UCG 2.44, -0.03, -1.32%) shares lost 2.2% in Milan.
Munich Re (DE:MUV2 103.02, +1.02, +1.00%) shares managed to buck the lower trend, rising 0.6% after the German insurer was upgraded to outperform from neutral at Credit Suisse.
On a regional level, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 4,811, -8.70, -0.18%) declined 0.4% to 4,799.81, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,296, -31.41, -0.59%) lost 0.5% to 5,298.38 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,561, -22.18, -0.62%) declined 0.6% to 3,562.25.
Asia markets were broadly lower, while U.S stock futures were pointing to a lackluster start on Wall Street after financials also pulled U.S. shares into the red on Tuesday.
Other decliners in Europe included telecom equipment group Alcatel-Lucent (FR:ALU 2.45, -0.11, -4.23%) (ALU 3.61, -0.14, -3.73%) , down 4.2%.
The firm's offering a convertible bond maturing in 2015 worth 750 million euros ($1.07 billion), which may be increased by as much as 15% for an over-allotment option.
Shares of A.P. Moller-Maersk fell 5.4% to 34,900 kroner in Copenhagen after it said it's going to sell up to 250,340 treasury B shares, representing approximately 5.7% of its total share capital, to both new and existing institutional investors.
At Tuesday's closing price of 36,900 kroner per B share, the value of the placing shares would be up to 9.2 billion Danish kroner ($1.76 billion). See full story.
RHJ (BE:RHJI 4.96, -0.16, -3.13%) shares fell 3.1% after the Belgium investment firm raised its offer for a stake in General Motors' European car unit, Opel, to 300 million euros, from a previous level of 275 million euros, according to reports.
On the plus side, shares of U.K. electronics retailer DSG International (UK:DSGI 28.66, +1.62, +6.00%) climbed 6.6%. Comparable sales in the 16 weeks to Aug. 22 declined 6%, which the firm said exceeded expectations, while margins increased 0.7% year-on-year.
"Given the challenging environment, this is an encouraging start to the year. Our Nordic business is performing strongly, the U.K. transformation continues on plan with the refurbished stores continuing to outperform and the Italian turnaround is starting to deliver," said CEO John Browett
