Europe close: Gains for Basic Resources offset losses for lenders

European equities ended the day little changed despite another spike higher in the single currency on the back of soft US CPI data.

At the closing bell, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was 0.18% or 0.70 points higher to 386.84, while Germany's Dax was edging lower by 0.08% or 9.61 points to 12,631.72.

Meanwhile, the FTSE Mibtel was off by 0.14% or 29.62 points at 21,492.29 and the Cac-40 was almost exactly unchanged at 5,235.31.

Euro/dollar meanwhile finished the session 0.54% ahead at 1.1462 as US June CPI data revealed inflation had slowed again, from 1.7% on the year in May to 1.6%.

Weakness in the euro ensued despite a sourced-report from Reuters according to which the ECB was in no hurry to signal a fixed end-date for its asset purchases.

Commenting on the US CPI numbers, economists at Citi said: "Downside surprises to both core inflation and retail sales increase the probability that rate hikes get pushed out further. But taking into account an otherwise solid growth backdrop and the somewhat stronger details of the inflation report, in our view, the Fed remains on track to announce balance sheet reduction in September and raise rates in December."

Somewhat diminished rate hike expectations in the States on the back of the CPI data pushed the Stoxx 600's gauge of lender shares down by 0.66% to 188.85.

Yet nimble traders were quick to shift into Basic Resources on the back of higher commodity prices and news that South Africa had decided to postpone implementation of a controversial mining law, sending the sector sub-index up by 1.40% to 416.36.

On the economic front, Ireland's gross domestic product shrank at a 2.6% quarter-on-quarter pace in the first three months of 2017, exceeding forecasts for a drop of 2.0%.

Even so, revisions to prior data meant the year-on-year reading beat some economists forecasts, despite slowing from 9.9% to 6.1%.

Meanwhile, the Eurozone's foreign trade surplus increased from €18.6bn in April to €19.8bn for May (consensus: €20.1bn), according to Eurostat. The previous month's estimate was revised down from a preliminary reading of €19.6bn.

Harmonised consumer prices in Italy, the euro area's third-largest economy slowed to a 1.2% year-on-year rate of gains in June versus after an increase of 1.6% in May, a final estimate from ISTAT revealed. In comparison to the previous month, they were 0.2% lower.

Italian lender Dobank was set to start trading on the Milan bourse with an initial market capitalisation €704.0m.

European carmarkers were in the spotlight following data from ACEA which showed EU car registrations rose by 2.1% in June to reach approximately 1.5m units.

Skanska AB was sharply lower after the construction company after revealing it would book write-downs for projects in the UK and US.

Another Swedish outfit, lender SEB AB gained after posting better-than-expected second quarter net interest income.