FTSE 100 closed out Tuesday around 30 points, 0.45%, standing at 6,266 after a rating agency sounded a bearish note on China and commodity prices.
The Dax in Frankfurt and the CAC-40 in Paris were also down despite a 0.1% rise in French industrial production.
Sentiment took a hit from a report by Moody's claiming that the main risks to the economic outlook would stem from a bigger-than-expected global fallout from the Chinese slowdown.
Moody's also said commodity prices were unlikely to rise significantly in the next few years. It added: "A large inventory build-up, a slow supply response and muted demand from China and other key importers will all weigh on prices."
As if to bear out the comments, data out of Beijing showed Chinese inflation at its lowest since June.
CPI rose 1.3%, missing expectations of 1.5%, as the recent surge in pork prices starts to drop out of the numbers. It followed figures showing a drop in Chinese imports and exports last month.
Miners took a hit in the wake of the news. Anglo American (LON:AAL) dropped 24.25p to 491.75p, BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) reversed 5.9p to 946.5p and Glencore (LON:GLEN) eased 4.65p to 105.05p.
There was bad news on the retail front in the UK, where a survey from the British Retail Consortium showed UK retail sales in October falling 0.2% on a like-for-like basis against the same time a year ago,
Supermarkets also fell after Tesco boss Dave Lewis warned of potential extra costs from minimum wage increases and business rates. Tesco (TSCO) dipped 3.3p to 175.25p, Sainsbury (LON:SBRY) declined 0.7p to 272.6p and Morrisons (LON:MRW) was off 4.3p at 159.5p.
On the markets, Vodafone (LON:VOD) rang up 8.35p to 222.8p after increasing its full-year earnings guidance on the back of improving European markets.
But builder's merchant Wolseley (LON:WOS) subsided 175p or 4.6% to 3630p on news that trading in one of its core markets, Britain, was proving tough.
Investors switched on to ITV (LON:ITV) by 4.7p to 261.5p as the UK terrestrial broadcaster forecasted a double-digit profit rise this year and called the outlook encouraging.
Rockhopper Exploration (LON:RKH) ticked up 0.25p to 40.75p as it announced success with a drilling operation off the Italian coast.
Internet domain name provider Centralnic (LON:CNIC) sparked 5.5p or 10% to 59.5p after becoming the first web domain wholesaler to sell 2mln new top-level domain (TLD) names.
Petropavlovsk (LON:POG) sparkled 0.21p to 5.79p as a broker pointed out that an investment vehicle owned by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg had bought into the gold miner.