European shares fell on Wednesday tracking overnight declines on Wall Street, with financials and bank stocks leading early declines, though gains in some defence-related stocks helped limit losses.
The pan-European STOXX 600 (.STOXX), opens new tab was down 0.5% at 552.5 points, as of 0714 GMT. Most regional bourses also ticked lower, with the Italian benchmark (.FTMIB), opens new tab at the helm of losses.
Heavyweight banks (.SX7P), opens new tab dropped 0.9%, with Germany's Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), opens new tab, UK's Barclays (BARC.L), opens new tab, France's Societe Generale (SOGN.PA), opens new tab and Denmark's Sydbank (SYDB.CO), opens new tab all down more than 1% each.
The subindex for financial services (.SXFP), opens new tab also dipped 1.1%.
An index tracking defence stocks (.SXPARO), opens new tab gained 0.8% after U.S. President Donald Trump said he believed Ukraine could retake all its land occupied by Russia and that Kyiv should act now.
Wall Street's main indexes fell overnight as investors parsed through Fed Chair Jerome Powell's remarks, which gave little indication about the future path of interest rates.
Among other early movers, Germany's Lanxess (LXSG.DE), opens new tab fell 5.2% after Deutsche Bank downgraded its rating on the speciality chemicals maker to "hold" from "buy".
