REFILE-European shares trim losses, tracking Wall Street

(corrects day in lead, Thursday not Friday)

FRANKFURT, Jan 31 (Reuters) - European shares trimmed some losses in afternoon trading on Thursday, taking their cue from leading U.S. stock market indexes which recovered from steep early slides.

At 1517 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 1.4 percent at 1,310.4 points, having traded as much as 2.6 percent lower earlier in the session. Financials were Europe's leading losers with the DJ Stoxx insurance and banks indexes down 3.1 percent.

Swiss bank UBS (UBSN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research) fell 7.2 percent, extending Wednesday's losses, after the director of the Swiss Federal Banking Commission said in a newspaper interview that UBS faced further writedowns as long as the credit crisis continued.

Analysts at some other investment banks downgraded UBS. (Reporting by Peter Starck)