European stocks broke a five-session winning run on Tuesday, with car makers helping to drive the market lower after a Volkswagen AG financial update.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index SXXP, -0.77% fell 0.8% to end at 347.45. For May, however, the pan-European benchmark nabbed a 1.8% advance, representing its best monthly performance since November.

U.S. stocks ended mostly lower on Tuesday, as investors turned cautious on the last trading day of the month and ahead of key economic data releases this week.

The main indexes ended the month with small to modest gains.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.48% closed 86.09 points, or 0.5%, lower at 17,787.13 after notching a 130-point decline earlier. The drop was led by hefty declines in Du Pont DD, -2.62% and Boeing Co. BA, -2.38% The average eked out less than a 0.1% gain for the month, but stretched its win streak to four months.

The S&P 500 SPX, -0.10% closed down 2.11 points, or 0.1%, to 2,096.95, with six of the 10 main sectors finishing in negative territory. Energy and materials sectors led the declines after a drop in oil prices. Sectors considered as defensive, such as utilities and telecoms, finished higher. The benchmark index gained 1.5% over the month, rising for a third straight month.

Asian stocks were on a weak footing on Wednesday as a slip in crude oil prices dampened investors' appetite for riskier assets, while the recently bullish dollar stalled against the euro and yen following a mixed bag of U.S. economic data.

Japan's Nikkei lost 0.6 percent as the yen firmed.

Other decliners included Australian stocks, which fell 0.9 percent.

Shanghai see-sawed in and out of negative terrain, and was last up 0.1 percent, after rallying hard the previous day on expectations MSCI could add China's mainland stocks to its emerging market benchmark for the first time.