European stock markets fell about 1 percent on Wednesday as investors sold metal and mining stocks on fears that prices have peaked, while technology stocks also slid after U.S. mobile giant Motorola disappointed. Insurers remained under pressure after New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer widened an investigation into the fees paid by some U.S. insurers to brokers for new business. Britain's Prudential fell 2.5 percent, ING fell 3.4 percent, France's Axa shed 2.4 percent and peer AGF, downgraded to "neutral" from "buy" by UBS, eased 1.2 percent. By 1049 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of pan-European blue chips was 1 percent weaker at 991.9 points, giving up most of its gains from Tuesday. "The glass was half full yesterday and it's half empty today," said Lex Werkheim, an asset manager at Eureffect in Amsterdam, highlighting the fall in the dollar to near 8-month lows against the euro as partly responsible for the fall. "That's not too great for most of the European multinationals, so that doesn't help. It seems like one disaster is following another," Werkheim said. "If we keep on being confronted with this type of news flow, like from the insurers, or oil price hikes or whatever, it's going to be a drag getting to the end of the year." --More 2251 Local Time 1951 GMT
