Europe close: Stocks track gains on Wall Street
A late buying spree lifted stocks across the Continent off their session lows, with traders seemingly breathing a sigh of relief as Wall Street began Thursday's session on the up.
That followed the release of a more hawkish than expected set of policy meeting minutes in the US overnight that initially weighed on sentiment, with a weak reading on German business confidence further dampening animal spirits in the markets and offsetting upbeat corporate updates.
At the closing bell, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by 0.20% or 0.76 points to 380.34, alongside a dip of 0.07% or 8.58 points to 12,461.91 for the German Dax, although the FTSE Mibtel still ended the day noticeably lower, shedding 189.50 points to close at 22,463.51.
Euro/dollar meanwhile was 0.35% higher to 1.2325 and the yield on the benchmark 10-year Bund off by two basis points to 0.71% following an early morning dip.
The minutes of US Federal Reserve policymakers' meeting on 30-31 January initially sent US government bond yields higher, which in turn weighed on Wall Street, although come Thursday afternoon they had almost completed retraced that move, touching an intra-session low of 2.90%.
Thursday also saw the release of the latest European Central Bank policy minutes, which drew a slightly mixed reaction from analysts, with some believing they pointed towards Frankfurt 'tweaking' its communications as soon as the March meeting and others expecting that any modification would not come before April.
"They remain uncomfortable with the uncertainty attached to movements in the euro over the outlook period and the impact on underlying domestic price dynamics. Not least as they remain unconvinced by the weak trend in wages.
"The majority of the ECB council still looks in no hurry to begin tightening monetary policy. Even tweaks to the communication may have to wait until the council meeting in April instead of March to better gauge the underlying inflation dynamics," said Oliver Rakau, chief German economist at Oxford Economics.
Also dampening sentiment, the IFO institute's business confidence gauge for Germany retreated from a reading of 117.6 points in January to 115.4 for February, although the think-tank pointed out that it remained at its second highest level since 1991.
Company-wise, shares of Hennes & Mauritz AB were still under pressure in the wake of data showing that so-called 'short interest' in the Swedish fashion retailer had climbed to over 9% of the shares outstanding, according to data provided by IHS Markit.
Shares in France's Bouygues Telecom ended the session near the unchanged mark, after early sharp gains, after delivering full-year top line growth of 4% to reach €32.9bn but a 62% jump in operating profits to €1.53bn.
Pacing gains on the Stoxx 600, Dutch biotech outfit Genmab's shares were running up 15% after soothing investors' worries on the outlook for sales of its blood cancer treatment Darzalex.
Dutch lender KBC's shares also gained some ground in the wake of its fourth quarter results.
Further South, in Spain, Telefonica stock got a lift from news that its full-year 2017 net profits soared 32.2% to hit €3.13bn.
In other news, oil major Repsol sold a 20% stake in Gas Natural to Rioja Bidco Shareholdings, controlled by private equity outfit CVC, for €3.82bn.