Europe midday: Stocks recover from early selling, banks and oil names lead
Stocks across the Continent are recovering for the most part from an early start lower, led by gains for banks and in the oil patch.
Travel and leisure names were also finding a bid as plans to ease lockdowns continued amid signs that the Covid-19 pandemic was thus far still under control in Europe.
"The surge in travel- and airline-related names comes on the day when the UK implements a quarantine for overseas travel, perhaps the very definition of shutting stable doors after the horse has bolted," said IG's Chris Beauchamp.
"With lockdowns easing across Europe and no sign of a second infection wave, this move has been staunchly opposed by airlines, and it looks like the market expects the restriction to remain in place for only a limited time."
As of 1230 BST, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was dipping 0.08% to 375.02, alongside a 0.15% rise for the German Dax to 12,866.04 while the FTSE Mibtel was advancing 0.67% to 20,324.31.
Pacing gains, were lenders' shares, with the Stoxx sector gauge jumping by 2.42%.
In the background meanwhile, 10-year German government bond yields were continuing to grind slightly higher even as those on similarly-dated Italian ones did the opposite.
Oil&Gas names were also near the top of the leaderboard, with the group moving higher by 2.61%, after OPEC+ decided at the weekend to extend its production curbs for another month with those countries who had not met their obligations to reduce output promising to compensate for it in the third quarter.
On the economic side of things, German industrial production was reported at down by 17.9% on the month in May (consensus: -16.0%), amid a 35.3% drop in production of capital goods.
Claus Vistesen at Pantheon Macroeconomics termed the news "grim but old news", forecasting that total output would fall at a quarter-on-quarter clip of 16% in the second quarter before rebounding by 12.1% over the three months to September.