Europe close: Stocks end off lows after dovish ECB meeting

Shares ended mostly lower, tracking losses on Wall Street, but ended the day off their lows.

News of a brief Israeli military incursion into Gaza also weighed on investor sentiment.

What some economists described as a dovish hold on the other hand helped lift shares off their lows.

"The prospect of higher rates for longer, along with earnings downgrades appears to be finally taking its toll on equity markets on both sides of the Atlantic, with another negative session for European markets with the DAX slipping back to the lows of the week, led by German automakers, with Mercedes-Benz leading the fallers, after a poor set of Q3 numbers," said CMC Markets UK's Michael Hewson

The pan-European Stoxx 600 dropped 0.48% to 433.20, alongside a 1.1% decline for the German Dax to 14,731.05, but Italy's FTSE Mib edged up 0.29% to 27,507.90.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year German Bund drifted two basis points lower to 2.87%, having earlier touched 2.937%.

Euro/dollar was off by 0.25% at 1.0542.

"Ms. Lagarde echoed Chief Economist Philip Lane’s comments that negotiated wage dynamics and collective bargaining for 2024 are key parameters for the determination of any rate cuts next year," said Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

"This, in turn, suggests that the ECB won’t be in a position to cut rates until June next year, at the earliest. But we still think the data will give the central bank room to start cutting rates in March, starting a very gradual reduction of restrictive policy."