The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 224.51, -2.72, -1.20%) declined 0.9% to 225.28, the second day of losses in three sessions. Still, the index is showing a gain on 9.1% for the quarter, helped by strong gains for miners and banks. These sectors were the worst performers in percentage terms on Wednesday, with lender BNP Paribas (FR:BNP 54.09, -1.32, -2.38%) , down 2.1%, and miner Anglo American (UK:AAL 1,801, -36.50, -1.99%) , down 1.9%. Autos were also weak, with car maker Daimler (DE:DAI 30.51, -0.59, -1.90%) (DAI 44.04, +0.44, +1.01%) , down 1.7%. On a regional level, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 4,639, -46.37, -0.99%) declined 0.9% to 4,644.38, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,183, -68.50, -1.31%) fell 1% to 5,197.96 and the French CAC-40 index. (FR:PX1 3,417, -33.46, -0.97%) index declined 0.8% to 3,422.91. U.S. stock futures were pointing to a weaker start on Wednesday with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures down 74 points. Big earnings rolled in overnight from Hewlett-Packard, which reported a 19% fall in third-quarter sales, though those results beat Wall Street's low outlook. "Hewlett-Packard numbers after hours did little for hopes of a tech recovery," said Ian Williams, strategist at Altium Securities. See Asia Markets. Technology stocks were under pressure in Europe on Wednesday, with chipmaker Infineon Technologies (DE:IFX 3.31, -0.13, -3.64%) , down 1.8%. Turning to telecoms and Telekom Austria shares rose 1.8% after it said that its second-quarter net income fell 14.5% to 82.3 million euros but reiterated its fiscal-year outlook for 2009. Eurasian Natural Resources (UK:ENRC 829.00, +51.00, +6.56%) shares managed to outperform the lower mining sector, rising 4.1% after it said that its first-half net profit fell 58.8% to $553 million but that market conditions broadly improved. Shares of SBM Offshore (NL:SBMO 13.46, +0.01, +0.04%) declined 0.3% as first-half net profit rose an above-forecast 12% to $95.5 million but sales for the period slipped 4.1% to $1.44 billion. The oil and gas services group said it didn't receive any major new orders in the first half, which helped pull its order backlog down to $8.2 billion from $9.5 billion a year earlier. However, it said there are "serious opportunities" for securing new orders in the second half of the year and stuck to its forecast for sales of around $2.9 billion for the year and for profit to be roughly flat from 2008. Asia suffered another big fall, with the Shanghai Composite index closing down 4.3% and the Shenzhen Composite 4.9% lower. Resource companies were among the loss-leaders.

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