Frankfurt lost 2.7 per cent as New York's weak opening proved a disappointment. The Xetra DAX index lost 123.31 to 4,534.55.

Deutsche Telekom tumbled 3.38 deutschmarks to DM49.10 in spite of its denial of a business magazine report that it had forecast lower 1999 results.

Banks were mixed after Tuesday's surge, which followed reports that Deutsche Bank was in preliminary take-over talks with Bankers Trust of the US.

BMW fell DM35 to DM1,141 as concerns grew over developments at its Rover offshoot in the Britain. Trade unions were reported as saying that the situation at Rover's Longbridge plant in Birmingham was even more precarious than had been thought, with the motor manufacturer facing 2,400 redundancies.

Paris gave up more than half the previous session's 2.8 per cent gain, slipping 51.74 at 3440.78 on the CAC-40 index in moderate volumes.

Something of a two-way pull developed in Franco-Italian chips group ST-Microelectronics after Goldman Sachs announced earnings cuts in the wake of the group's third-quarter results, while Cheuvreux lifted estimates.

The shares ended 1.50 francs higher at Ffr301.50.

A bounce for PolyGram and a rumour-dominated session for publishers made for a lively day in Amsterdam where the AEX index ended off 4.37 at 970.66.

Publishers pushed ahead strongly, bucking the broad downtrend for Dutch equities on the back of a string of diverse stories.

Madrid gave up some of its recent gains as the general index fell 11.33 to 744.57. Banks suffered from profit-taking following their good performances of recent days.

Milan faltered after the strong rally of recent days with the Mibtel index sliding 446 to 19,537 amid profit-taking.