Europe midday: Shares hold gains to maintain rally

European shares continued their pre-Christmas rally on Thursday, taking their cue from a strong US session driven by an upbeat consumer confidence reading.

The benchmark Stoxx 600 index was up 0.29% at 11.45 GMT, with all major regional bourses higher.

US consumer confidence rose to an eight-month high in December as inflation retreated and the labour market remained strong.

“Markets are attempting a last-ditch effort to achieve a Santa rally with Wall Street closing significantly higher last night. Better-than-expected US corporate earnings helped to spur a pick-up in risk appetite which when combined with lighter-than-normal volumes around the holidays resulted in US averages posting their best session since November,” said Interactive Investor head of investment Victoria Scholar.

In the UK, the economy contracted more than first estimated in the three months to September as household incomes fell, according to figures released on Thursday by the Office for National Statistics.

GDP shrank 0.3% in the third quarter, versus an initial estimate of a 0.2% contraction. The figures showed that real household incomes fell by 0.5% during the quarter - the fourth consecutive quarter of negative growth.

The revised data also showed that the economy grew 0.6% in the first quarter and 0.1% in the second, down from previous estimates of 0.7% and 0.2% growth, respectively.

On the equities front, shares in LondonMetric Property fell after a downgrade by Citigroup to ‘neutral’ from ‘buy’.