European shares fell on Wednesday, with British education publisher Pearson slumping after warning on its earnings and Swiss bank Credit Suisse dropping on its plans for capital hikes, Reuters reported. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was down 0.5 percent at 1,423.21 points by 0816 GMT after falling 0.5 percent in the previous session. Miners fell 1.5 percent, tracking a sharp drop in prices of industrial metals. Only 6 percent of 284 companies in the STOXX Europe 600 index have reported quarterly results so far, of which 69 percent have met or beaten forecasts, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. Across Europe, Britain's FTSE 100, Germany's DAX and France's CAC fell 0.2 to 0.5 percent.
