World markets down as focus turns to US consumer

World stock markets fell Monday as investors took advantage of a light financial news day to book profits made over the last couple of weeks and turned their focus towards the state of the U.S. consumer.

By mid afternoon London time, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 33.88 points, or 0.8 percent, at 4,428.21, while Germany's DAX fell 50.24 points, or 1 percent, to 4,863.66. The CAC-40 in France was 81.82 points, or 2.5 percent, lower at 3,230.77.

And on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 104.34 points, or 1.2 percent, at 8,470.31 soon after the open while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 14.15 points, …