Europe's main stock markets were down sharply at the start of trading on Wednesday, in the wake of Wall Street's sharp decline the previous day and a new round of mixed corporate results. In Paris, the CAC 40 lost 1.08% to 7,449.93 points around 08:06 GMT. In London, the FTSE 100 gave up 0.59% and in Frankfurt, the Dax was down 1.05%. The EuroStoxx 50 index, the FTSEurofirst 300 and the Stoxx 600 were down 1.1%. Wall Street ended Tuesday on a sharp decline - the biggest recorded for the month of April - after several disappointing corporate results, including those from UPS, which fuelled fears about the economy, and First Republic Bank, which rekindled worries about the sector. U.S. index futures are pointing to a rebound at Wednesday's opening, particularly for the Nasdaq, following better-than-expected results from tech giants Alphabet and Microsoft, but this is so far providing little support in Europe. The European technology sector is one of the biggest decliners in its sector (-2%), due to the plunge of ASM International (-11%), which disappointed on its second-quarter forecasts, and Dassault Systemes , which reported a sharper-than-expected drop in first-quarter software sales. The European stock market was also buoyed by the announcement of Teleperformance's plan to acquire its competitor Majorel for three billion euros. The transaction, which will be carried out partly in cash and partly via a capital increase by Teleperformance, was not well received by the French group, which fell by 12%. In Amsterdam, Majorel jumped 38% to close in on the offer price of 30 euros per share. (Written by Blandine Hénault, edited by Kate Entringer)