U.S. stock indexes are mixed in midday trading Wednesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down three-tenths of a percent, while the S&P 500 is off four-tenths of one percent. The NASDAQ is up one-half of one percent.

European stock prices fell sharply.

London's Financial Times index ended down 1.4 percent to close at 5,288. The CAC-40 in Paris dropped 1.6 percent to finish at 2,936. The DAX index in Frankfurt lost 2.5 percent to end at 5,434.

In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei index gained nearly one-quarter of one percent to finish at 8,741.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index lost one percent to finish the day's trading at 18,824.

Gold is trading down $1.07 at $1,802.61 an ounce.

The dollar is trading lower against both the yen and the euro.