As the Spanish credit rating was cut by Moody's and Italian debt costs increased during a bond auction, U.K.'s stocks dropped on Thursday with continuous concerns around the European crisis. In the morning trade the FTSE 100 index declined 0.7%, Fresnillo PLC dropped 2.2%, BHP Billiton PLC plummeted 1.9% and Xstrata PLC tumbled 3.2%. The BSkyB was hit the strongest with a flop of 6.8%.