Europe's leading stock markets dropped in morning trade on Tuesday as investors reacted to poor earnings news on the grim anniversary of global indices striking multi-year low points.

London's benchmark FTSE 100 index fell 0.56 percent to 5,575.28 points, Frankfurt's DAX 30 shed 0.35 percent to 5,855.07 points and in Paris the CAC 40 declined by 0.39 percent to stand at 3,888.14.

The Stoxx 50 index of top eurozone shares gave up 0.45 percent in value to 2,866.19 points.

"It may be the first anniversary of the global equity market rebound from the (multi-year) lows of March 2009, but with volumes slowing and Wall Street finishing rather mixed, the temptation may well be to leave the champagne on ice for a little longer yet as this latest rally runs out of steam," said analyst Ben Potter at spread-betting firm IG Markets.

On March 9, 2009, the Tokyo stock market slumped to a 26-year low, and London reached six-year depths at under 3,500 points amid the world's deepest economic downturn since the 1930s.

Markets have since rebounded sharply thanks to unprecedented state stimulus measures that have helped pull nations free of recession.

On Tuesday meanwhile, some of Europe's biggest companies posted full-year earnings.

The share price of EADS slumped 5.42 percent to 15.02 euros on the Paris market after the European aerospace giant said it had plunged into loss last year because of big provisions to cover cost over-runs on its A400M military transport project and A380 superjumbo jet.

EADS released its results just hours after it withdrew from a joint bid with US partner Northrop Grumman to build an aerial refuelling tanker plane for the US Air Force.

US rival Boeing was poised to win the 35-billion-dollar contract after EADS pulled out of the bidding, later objecting vigorously that the terms of the latest tender had been skewed by US authorities in favour of Boeing.

EADS posted a 2009 net loss of 763 million euros (1.04 billion dollars) after making a net profit of 1.57 billion euros the previous year.

Meanwhile in Frankfurt, the share price of Deutsche Post slid 1.09 percent to 12.67 euros after the German logistics giant said it had swung back into the black last year, after a massive 2008 loss. It added that it was in good shape for 2010.

Deutsche Post, which owns the DHL courier service, posted net profit of 644 million euros for 2009 after a loss of 1.7 billion euros the previous year, which was marked by major devaluations of company assets.

Earlier on Tuesday, Tokyo's Nikkei-225 index closed down 0.17 percent to 10,567.65 points -- easing off a six-week high as investors took profits following a sluggish performance on Wall Street.

Investors were cautious ahead of a raft of Chinese economic data due on Thursday that could stoke jitters about further steps by Beijing to cool its fast-growing economy, dealers said.

US stocks closed mixed on Monday in the absence of incentives to spur the market higher after a hefty three percent gain last week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.13 percent to end at 10,552.52 points.