London: Shares fell in Europe and Asia on Wednesday while the dollar rose broadly, hitting a new seven-year high against the yen, as investors focused on the divergent outlooks for the world’s major economies.

Oil prices stayed near 4-year lows on signs of disagreement between Opec members before a meeting next week.

European shares opened lower, dragged down by miners after a sharp fall in iron ore prices. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index. FTEU3 was down 0.3 per cent.

“There’s been no pause in the sell-off in commodity prices, which drags the shares of all the basic-resources companies. The slide in oil and metal prices is sending warning signals about the outlook for global growth, signals that for now the broad stock market is ignoring,” Talence Gestion fund manager Alexandre Le Drogoff said.

“This incoherence shows that equities are mostly supported by the input from the central banks, and not economic indicators.”

Attention was again drawn to Japan. Tokyo stocks fell as investors took profits on gains made on Tuesday when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delayed a sales tax and called a snap election.

While the Japanese premier’s actions were seen as positive for risky assets, investors took stock of the challenges ahead in the world’s third-largest economy and the Nikkei share index closed 0.3 per cent lower. On Tuesday it made its biggest daily gain in two months.

The Bank of Japan on Wednesday kept its monetary policy unchanged, as expected. Governor Haruhiko Kuroda told a news conference the BOJ’s monetary stimulus program was exerting its intended effect. Japan unexpectedly slipped into recession in the third quarter.

Later in the day, eyes will be on minutes of the latest policy meetings of the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve.

Both are expected to raise interest rates at some point in 2015 as economic recovery takes hold, although market bets on the timing of these hikes have been pushed back toward the end of the year.

The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan, on the other hand, are expected to keep policy very loose for a much longer period.

The yen fell as low as 117.44 to the dollar, its weakest since October 2007 and was last at 117.32, down 0.4 per cent on the day.

The euro edged down to $1.2533.

Crude below $79:

Brent crude oil, which has fallen nearly a third in recent months, held below $79 a barrel after data showed Saudi Arabia increased crude exports in September and as divisions between Opec members appeared to grow before a meeting in Vienna on Nov. 27.

“It’s going to be hard to reach any sort of agreement to cut production,” said Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney.

A stronger dollar saw gold slip from a near three-week high hit on Tuesday. Spot gold was last at $1,199.00 an ounce.