European shares ended higher on Wednesday on hopes the U.S. Federal Reserve would support the fragile recovery with fresh stimulus measures, but that did not prevent shares recording their worst monthly drop since October 2008, according to Reuters. Stocks were given a boost by the U.S. Federal Reserve stimulus hopes after minutes from the Fed's Aug. 9 meeting revealed some officials had pressed for a more aggressive plan. "Any further stimulus is going to produce a positive response in the market," said Bill Dinning, head of investment strategy at Aegon Asset Management in Edinburgh, which has 48.8 billion pounds ($79.4 billion) under management. Mining stocks, whose performance is highly correlated to economic growth, featured among the best performers, with the STOXX Europe 600 Basic Resources index rising 4.1 percent. The mining index has dropped 19.5 percent since July as concerns have escalated about a slowdown in economic growth and fears have grown the United States could fall into recession after a slew of weak economic data and a credit downgrade.
