Europe close: Stocks bolt out of the gates on more dovish central banks

Equities jumped as central bankers from around the world appeared to sound a more dovish note than had been the case over recent weeks.

By the closing bell, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was higher by 1.52% or 5.75 points to 384.90, while the German Dax was ahead by 1.52% or 189.56 points to trade at 12,626.58, alongside gains of 1.59% or 81.53 points to 5,222.13 for France's Cac-40.

A day heavily-laden with central bank speakers kicked off with a somewhat dovish interview from the Monetary Policy Committee's Ben Broadbent. In an interview with the Press & Journal published overnight, Broadbent said he was not yet ready to vote for an increase in Bank Rate.

He was followed early on Wednesday morning by European Central Bank Governing Council member Ignazio Visco, who said monetary policy needed to remain expansionary in order to aid the recovery in the economy.

Capping it all off, of course, was US Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen.

In prepared remarks for testimony before a Congressional panel, Yellen said that the: "federal funds rate will not have to rise all that much further to get to a neutral policy stance."

Providing a further boost to European stocks, the single currency came down by 0.41% to 1.1420 even after Yellen.

As Wolf von Rotberg at Deutsche Bank pointed out, since end-May the consensus forecast for the rate of growth in profits at companies on the Stoxx 600 had come down by 2.5 percentage points to 6.0% as a result of the strength in the single currency.

Euro area industrial production leaped by 1.3% month-on-month in May, easily beating forecasts for a rise of 0.6%.

On a related note, in an interview published on Wednesday French finance minister Edouard Philippe predicted the country's economy would expand at a 1.6% clip in 2017 followed by growth of 1.7% in 2018.

Shares in Premier Oil shot higher after announcing an oil strike at Zama-1 well offshore Mexico.

Engineering services group Bilfiger launched a profit warning, its first in two years.

German lender Deutsche Bank hived off a 5.5% stake in Heidelberger Druckmaschinen.

China's Fosun was still maintaining contacts aimed at possibly picking up a stake in French ski resorts and amusement parks operator Compagnie des Alpes, one of its directors said, with a few other consumer goods companies also on its radar.