Europe shares fall further on Wall Street decline (Reuters) (13-03-2008)

LONDON, March 13 (Reuters) - European shares had been in negative territory since morning but losses extended further in early afternoon trade on Thursday after Wall Street opened with steep losses

Banks fell 4.6% in the Stoxx 600 index, weighed down by losses from London-listed HSBC Holdings, down 3%, and Swiss bank UBS, down 6.5%.

And Italian lender UniCredit fell 8.1% after reporting a fourth-quarter net profit rise of 38% to 1.23 billion Euros that nonetheless missed analyst forecasts. Shares fell 91.8% in Amsterdam.

By 1350 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 2.5 percent at 1,253.16 after hitting a low of 1,250.87.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI shed 1.5 percent, while the S&P 500 .SPX lost 1.6 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 1.3 percent.

Across Europe, Britain's FTSE 100was down 2.4 percent, Germany's DAX slid 2.9 percent and France's CAC-40tumbled 3 percent.

Source: Reuters