Europe close: Stocks end on mixed note

Stocks finished on a mixed note and off their best levels of the day, boosted by overnight gains on Wall Street and a better-than-expected reading on German economic confidence that sent the Dax racing to a fresh all-time high earlier earlier in the session.

By the close of trading, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was higher by 0.17% or 0.70 points at 402.81, alongside a rise of 0.71% or 95.91 points to 13,559.60 for the German Dax but a dip of 0.12% or 6.73 points to 5,553.26 in the Cac-40.

In parallel, the yield on the benchmark 10-year German bund was down by one basis point to 0.56% alongside an advance in the euro which was up 0.19% against the US dollar to 1.2283.

Acting as a backdrop, earlier the ZEW Institute reported that its economic confidence gauge for the euro area's largest economy rose by 3.0 points in January to hit 20.4 (consensus: 17.7).

Commenting on the price action in markets on Tuesday, David Madden at CMC Markets UK, said:"Equity markets are mixed again in Europe as there is no clear sentiment across The Continent. The DAX hit a new all-time high this morning, but the market has been drifting lower since."

On the data front, the European Commission's 'flash' euro area consumer confidence index climbed by 0.8 points in January to reach 1.3.

No major data releases were scheduled for the afternoon in the States.

On the corporate front, shares in French grocer Carrefour snapped higher after the company announced it had entered into a partnership with Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings as a part of a shift towards online shopping that would see it cut 2,400 jobs.

In another corner of the technology space, it surfaced on Tuesday that BP was studying tabling a bid for a collection of solar assets in Italy.

According to Bloomberg, who cited people familiar with the matter, the assets of Rete Rinnovabile had been valued at roughly €1.5bn.