Europe close: Shares head into the weekend on a mixed note
Stocks on the Continent finished the session mostly on a down note, but off their worst levels, as trading on Wall Street got off to a positive start, with traders hoping for the best out the G-20 leaders meeting in Buenos Aires at the weekend.
On that note, Josh Mahony at IG told clients: "European markets are closing out the week in hesitant fashion with attention focused on global affairs as the leaders of the world’s biggest economies meet.
"A dovish shift in tone from the US Federal Reserve has been the big news of the week, but Brexit and US-China relations are still casting long, dark clouds over the markets. We have seen a significant element of profit-taking today, with recent declines in the dollar easing into the weekend despite a seemingly critical shift in tone from Jerome Powell."
By the end of trading, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by 0.17% or 0.61 points at 357.49, alongside a drop of 0.36% or 40.99 points to 11,257.24 for the German Dax and a dip of 0.05% or 2.33 points to 5,003.92 for the Cac-40.
Milan's FTSE Mibtel meanwhile added 0.15% or 29.37 points to finish at 19,188.97.
The flow of data at the end of the week was decidedly mixed, with Italy's national statistics office reporting that the country's economy shrank unexpectedly over the three months to September.
Italian GDP dropped at a 0.1% quarter-on-quarter pace, its first decline since the second quarter of 2014, ISTAT said, which was less than a preliminary estimate of unchanged.
And the latest readings on Eurozone unemployment and inflation both came in below economists' forecasts.
According to Eurostat, joblessness in the single currency bloc was unchanged from the month before in November at 8.1%, defying projections for a dip to 8.0%.
The rate of gains in headline consumer prices in the euro area meanwhile slowed from a 2.2% clip year-on-year for October to 2.0% in November (consensus: 2.1%).