European Markets
London's FTSE 100 was off 0.8 per cent and the CAC 40 blue chip index in Paris fell 1.4 per cent while Frankfurt's electronically traded Xetra Dax added 0.7 per cent.
STMicroelectronics , Europe's biggest chip maker, dropped 2.4 per cent, Germany's Infineon Technologies fell 1.4 per cent and Philips Electronics, the No. 3 chipmaker and Europe's biggest consumer electronics company, was down 1.3 per cent.
ARM Holdings, Europe's biggest chip designer, declined 2.2 per cent in London and the world's biggest supplier of chip making equipment AMSL fell 4.5 per cent in Amsterdam.
British Airways fell 3.3 per cent in London as rival Deutsche Lufthansa gained 2.9 per cent in Frankfurt. Aerospace giant EADS added 0.5 per cent, while aero-engine maker Rolls Royce dropped 4.4 per cent.
In Amsterdam the AEX index was off 1.1 per cent and the SMI in Zurich dropped 0.2 per cent lower, while Milan's MIB30 index slipped 1.3 per cent.
The pan-European FTSE Eurotop 300, a broader index of the region's largest stocks dropped 0.8 per cent.
Asian Markets
In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei average fell 0.54 per cent while the capital-weighted TOPIX index was off 1.09 per cent.
Canon, Japan's largest office machine maker, dropped 4.69 per cent. Number 1 automaker Toyota Motor Corp. fell 4.04 per cent after gaining 7.6 per cent on Tuesday.
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp fell 4.09 per cent, after falling 4.92 per cent Tuesday. The subsector index IBNKS. fell 0.92 per cent.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index dropped 1.76 per cent.
HSBC, the biggest constituent stock on the Hang Seng, added 5.23 per cent.
China Mobile, the index's second biggest stock, ended 1.08 per cent.
In Australia, benchmark S& P/ASX 200 index ended up one per cent.
Australia's biggest airline, Qantas Airways, finished up 3.6 per cent.
