QE quandary leaves European shares lower

* Banks, miners fall on QE worries

* Royal Dutch Shell (Xetra: R6C1.DE - news) leads oils lower, trades ex-div

* Carlsberg (Other OTC: CABGY - news) , E. ON, SSE (LSE: SSE.L - news) higher after results

By David Brett

LONDON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - European shares opened lower on Wednesday, tracking overnight losses in the U.S. and Asia, as central bank forward guidance on monetary policy remained a major driver of equity markets.

Wall Street wobbled and Asian and European markets followed suit after Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart, seen as a centrist in policy terms, said on Tuesday a cut in the Federal Reserve's bond-buying operations remained a possibility at its Dec. 17-18 meeting.

Rising volatility and weak volumes early in November suggest investors are beginning to trade more cautiously, despite a slow grind higher in equity markets, as the noise surrounding the withdrawal of equity-friendly monetary policy cranks up again.

With more Fed officials set to speak later in the session and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney tasked with delicately balancing forecasts on UK inflation, growth and unemployment with the investors' expectations of continued easy monetary policy, markets could be in for a choppy ride on Wednesday.

"Investors are looking for a correction this morning ... Overall there will be some volatility thrown in with bias to the downside," said Jawaid Afsar, sales trader at SecurEquity.

He said talk of withdrawing economic support in the U.S. sooner than expected, given the recent strong economic data, and concern about the timing of an eventual UK rate rise, were driving risk-off sentiment in the short-term.

Banks and miners, sectors most acutely exposed to the easy monetary policy adopted by central banks, led the fallers, each down 0.6 percent.

At 0828 GMT, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was down 3.29 points, or 0.3 percent, at 1,287.63 after falling 0.6 percent in the previous session.

The European oil and gas index also fell sharply with heavyweight Royal Dutch Shell a major factor in the sector's weakness after the third biggest firm by market capitalisation in Europe went ex-dividend.

While equity markets wobbled at the margin on the words of central bankers, more broadly they remain supported around multi-year highs on expectations that monetary policy will remain in place for the foreseeable future and earnings will soon pick-up to support recent rise in valuations.

Drinks firm Carlsberg rallied 2.8 percent after its third-quarter results met market expectations and it maintained earnings guidance, traders said.

Energy firms SSE and E. ON also edged higher after their respective results.

There was technical support too for euro zone stocks with the region's blue chip Euro STOXX 50 index recovering opening losses to trade flat at 3,033.59 points.

"The Euro STOXX 50 is in a short-term consolidation within its long-term resistance zone of 3,050-3,080. Next (Berlin: NXG.BE - news) support level is 3,000," Sophia Wurm, technical analyst at Commerzbank (Xetra: CBK100 - news) , said.

"Nevertheless, from a medium-term view, the current consolidation should have a trend-confirming character to the upside."