PARIS/FRANKFURT/MADRID - April 9, (WNM staff) French shares lost on Thursday, with the benchmark Paris CAC 40 down 1.93 percent, or 104.43 points, to close at 5,313.16 points.
Of the 40 selected large companies, 39 lost in the day.
French-Italian multinational electronics and semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics lost 5.01 percent, the top loser of the blue chips. French banking company Credit Agricole went down by 4.54 percent and French multinational automotive supplier Valeo lost 4.51 percent.
French multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi advanced 0.16 percent and French food services and facilities management company Sodexo rose 0.05 percent.
German shares lost on Thursday, with the benchmark DAX index down 206.01 points, or 1.69 percent, to close at 12,973.92 points.
Automotive supplier Continental lost the most among the blue chips, down by 5.32 percent, followed by insurance and financial services company Allianz and semiconductor manufacturer Infineon Technologies, which lost 4.87 percent and 4.60 percent respectively.
Housing association Vonovia, multinational building materials company HeidelbergCement and European health care company Fresenius SE were the top three winners, rising 2.69 percent, 0.46 percent and 0.44 percent respectively.
Automotive manufacturer Daimler was the most traded share of the day with a turnover of 386.4 million euros (428.9 million U.S. dollars).
Spanish share values fell by 1.43 percent on Thursday with the benchmark stock market index Ibex-35 opening on 9,227.00 points and closing on 9,095.20 points.
The shares of 29 of the 35 companies trading on the Ibex-35 lost value, while the share prices of just six went up.
Thursday's worst performing company was steel producer Arcelormittal, which saw 6.29 percent knocked off its share price. Shares of the engineering, design and construction firm Tecnicas Reunidas, went down by 4.03 percent, while those of pharmaceutical and hospital group Grifols, dropped by 3.69 percent.
The day's best results were for cellulose and energy producer ENCE: Energia y Celulosa, which saw a 4.61 percent increase in share prices. Viscofan, which also produces cellulose, saw share values go up by 1.49 percent, while shares in infrastructure company, Acciona went up by 1.20 percent.