Europe close: Stocks higher ahead of US central bank meeting

Stocks on the Continent finished the session modestly higher, despite the British Parliament's apparent ultimatum to Brussels the day before to reopen negotiations on the Irish backstop agreement, helped by some surprisingly upbeat economic data out of France and Germany.

"With everyone desperate to avoid a no-deal Brexit, there is still a good chance that there will slowly be a softening in stance towards Theresa May’s existing deal in Westminster. Given the backing of the no-deal amendment in parliament, it comes as no surprise that the pound continues to find buyers despite such an occurrence being just two months away," said IG's Chris Beauchamp.

But Oxford Economics's Associate Director, Andrew Goodwin, appeared less convinced, telling clients: "[May's] strategy is very unlikely to succeed, with little prospect of the EU relenting on the backstop.

"With the Government only able to muster a majority with a plan which has little chance of gaining agreement from the EU and MPs remaining reluctant to overturn parliamentary norms, we believe that the risk of a 'no deal' outcome remains uncomfortably high."

Investors' mood also appeared to be rather buoyant despite the multiple risk events that remained on tap for after the market close, include a key policy meeting of the US central bank, quarterly results from tech giant Microsoft, not to mention the possibility of fresh headlines out of the second round of trade talks between the US and China in Washington.

By the end of trading, the pan-European Stoxx 600 had added 0.36% or 1.28 points to 358.51, alongside a 0.95% or 46.58 point rise for the Cac-40 to 4,974.76, with the latter boosted by Wednesday's unexpectedly strong fourth quarter GDP print.

Meanwhile, the pound mnaged to keep is head above water against the single currency, trading up by 0.08% to 1.1437, although it was off an earlier high of 1.1475.

Germany's Dax on the other hand was down by 0.33% or 37.17 points to 11,181.66 after the country's economy ministry confirmed that it had slashed its 2019 GDP growth forecast from 1.8% to 1.0%.

Spain's Ibex 35 was also down, erasing 0.52% to 9,071.50, despite bumper 2018 profits at Santander.

The Spain-based lender saw profits increase 18% to €7.81bn, helped by a 28% rise at its Spanish arm to €1.458bn and a 66% jump in the US to €552m, while in Brazil they were up by 2% to €2.61bn and in the UK they fell by 9% to reach €1.362bn.

On the economic side of things, according to INSEE, France's GDP expanded at 0.3% quarter-on-quarter clip over the three months to December, beating forecasts for growth of between 0.1% and 0.2% as services sector activity, public spending and foreign trade more than offset the drag from lower household spending and business investment.

In parallel, consultancy GfK's consumer confidence index for Germany shot higher from January's revised reading of 10.5 to 10.8 in February, dwarfing forecasts for a dip to 10.3.

Also still ahead for later in the day, at 1330 GMT, was a preliminary reading on German harmonised consumer prices in the month of January.