* FTSE 100 down 0.2 percent in choppy trade
* Miners, energy firms and banks in negative territory
* Earnings from U.S. firms JPMorgan, Google, IBM eyed
By Harpreet Bhal
LONDON, July 16 (Reuters) - Britain's top share index edged down in choppy trade on Thursday after hefty gains in the previous session, with investors focused on U.S. earnings later in the day to provide fresh clues on the health of global firms.
By 0824 GMT, the FTSE 100 was 0.2 percent lower, down 8.35 points at 4338.11, after closing at a four-week high on Wednesday.
The index struggled to track gains in Asia and Wall Street overnight, but is still set for its best weekly performance in two months.
Encouraging earnings from Intel Corp and Goldman Sachs and strong economic growth from China helped support some positive sentiment in the market, but concerns about the wider economy put a cap on recent gains.
"The market believes that the risk of a double dip recession is not to be ignored. I think we will get considerable choppiness over the course of the summer," said Jeremy Batstone-Carr, analyst at Charles Stanley.
"There is still very low levels of visibility. If short term data continues to show improvement in sentiment then maybe in the autumn the market can kick on from there. However the debt mountain (in Western economies) is not to be ignored," he said.
The spotlight now turns to a slew of corporate earnings, with JPMorgan Chase, IBM and Google releasing figures later on Thursday.
Mining firms took the most points off the index after metals prices turned negative. Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Kazakhmys , Lonmin and Rio Tinto lost between 0.9 and 3.3 percent.
Vedanta Resources fell 0.7 percent. Indian metals producer Sterlite Industries said parent Vedanta would buy $500 million of its American Depository Shares issue.
Energy firms were also lower, with Cairn Energy, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and BG Group falling between 0.2 and 0.6 percent.
Bucking the trend, Petrofac gained 5 percent, after the oil and gas service provider said its unit Petrofac Emirates, in partnership with GS E&C, was awarded a $2.1 billion Abu Dhabi integrated gas development contract.
Banks were also in the doldrums, with Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered falling between 0.2 and 0.5 percent. Lloyds Banking Group, however, added 0.5 percent while Royal Bank of Scotland was flat.
UK software firm Autonomy was the biggest faller on the index, down 7.6 percent, as analysts said although the firm reported second quarter revenue which was in line with expectations, it missed a number of top end estimates, and the market expected more from its outlook.
DEFENSIVES GAIN
On the upside, defensive telecom and tobacco stocks gained. Vodafone added 0.6 percent while British American Tobacco was up 0.4 percent.
Schroders climbed 3.1 percent, after Citigroup raised the fund firm's target to "buy" from "sell".
On the economic front, China's growth rate shot up in the second quarter on the back of a surge in state spending and bank lending, boosting hopes the biggest emerging economy will lead the way out of the worst global downturn since the 1930s..
However, optimism may be dampened by news that CIT Group, a lender of thousands of small and mid-size U.S businesses, said bailout talks with the government had ended, a development that could ultimately drive the company into bankruptcy.
(Editing by Simon Jessop)