Eurostoxx 50: 2,159.07 (–47.54) Frankfurt DAX: 5,480 (–122.80) Paris CAC: 3,016.99 (–59.05):EUROPEAN STOCKS declined yesterday, extending Thursday's biggest drop since March 2009, amid concern that the global economy is slowing.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 0.7 per cent to 225.19 in London, paring an earlier drop of as much as 3.6 per cent.

The gauge has tumbled 23 per cent from this year’s peak in February amid concern that Europe will fail to contain its sovereign-debt crisis and that the economic recovery in the US will falter.

“People fear a recession” in the US, Andrea Williams, who helps manage $989 million as a fund manager at Royal London Asset Management, said. “The second fear is in Europe with the debt crisis, this political vacuum and the feeling that they’re not doing enough. That’s affecting banks. We’ve been defensively positioned,” he said.

Shell retreated 2 per cent to 1,891p, leading energy stocks lower as oil earlier declined as much as 3.9 per cent in New York to $79.17 a barrel.

Lloyds led bank stocks lower, falling 4.1 per cent to 28.57p.

Deutsche Bank fell 1.4 per cent to €27.58.

The cost of protecting European financial debt surged to an all-time high yesterday.

Autonomy soared 74 per cent to 2,480p, the most since at least 2000. Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest computer maker, agreed to buy the company for $10.3 billion in cash to increase sales of cloud services for businesses while lessening its reliance on personal computers.

Temenos, a Geneva-based maker of banking software, jumped 7.3 per cent to 14.8 francs.

Software climbed 6 per cent to €28.14.

Bayerische Motoren Werke lost 1.3 per cent to €53.44.

William Demant dropped 2.1 per cent to 390.3 kroner. The world’s second-largest maker of hearing aids reported net income of 576 million kroner in the first six months of the year compared with an average estimate of 585 million kroner in a Bloomberg survey of 12 analysts.

Royal Ahold, the Dutch owner of Stop and Shop supermarkets in the US, fell 2.3 per cent to €8.12.

Danske Bank slid 5.2 per cent to 77.15 kroner as Denmark’s biggest lender was cut to “equal weight” from “overweight” at Morgan Stanley. – (Bloomberg)