Europe close: Stocks attempt rally after recent tech sell-off

Stocks in Europe finished higher tracking a bounce on Wall Street with investors shrugging off news that AstraZeneca has paused the phase three clinical trials of its leading Covid-19 vaccine candidate.

As well, at least for the moment, investors appeared to be looking past the possibility that London and Brussels might fail in their attempts to reach a Brexit deal, with the UK leaving the bloc on WTO terms come January as a result.

"Stock markets are back in rally mode as investors look to get back to their ‘buy the dip’ ways that proved so successful over the past few months. While the pullback has only really lasted a few days, that is the norm for this rally since March," said IG chief market analyst Chris Beauchamp.

"The drop in early June was swift and brutal, but short-lived. The early September version appears to be heading in the same direction. The big difference now is that we are much closer to the election, and the immediate economic bounce seems to have run its course too, making it far less certain that the overall march higher will resume."

By the end of trading, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was up by 1.62% to 369.65, alongside a rise of 2.07% for the German Dax to 13,237.21 while the FTSE Mibtel added 2.02% to 19,771.32.

Selling in technology stocks abated on Wednesday, helped by a bounce in America's Nasdaq-100 off technical support at its 50-day moving average.

On the pandemic front meanwhile, a dip of 0.17% on the FTSE 250 betrayed the dampening effect on investor sentiment from news of fresh mobility restrictions in the UK.

AstraZeneca reversed early losses, edging up 0.26%. Overnight, the drug giant paused ongoing trials for its AZD1222 vaccine candidate due to a "potentially unexplained illness" in one of the participants.

The company described the move as routine while analysts at Goldman Sachs reportedly said that typically such safety data reviews were a matter of days, not weeks or months.

LVMH shares were similarly little changed despite the luxury products retailer announcing that it had decided to call off its $16bn acquisition of US rival Tiffany after being instructed by the French foreign ministry to seek a delay in the transaction close.