Europe midday: Stocks in the black as oil prices recover

European stocks racked up healthy gains on Wednesday as bounce in oil prices and better-than-expected Chinese trade figures lifted the mood.

At midday, the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 index was up 1.1%, Germany’s DAX was 0.9% firmer and France’s CAC 40 was up 1.4%.

The latest trade out of China showed exports fell 1.4% in December in US dollar terms, which was better than the 8% drop expected by economists.

Meanwhile, imports declined 7.6%, beating expectations for an 11% slide.

“European equity markets are trading higher…managing to build on yesterday's gain on the back of better-than-expected Chinese trade data overnight. There is quite some relief that both imports and exports fell substantially less than expected which for some is providing an indication that the state of the Chinese economy is less concerning than feared," said Markus Huber, senior analyst at Peregrine & Black.

“Still it needs to be seen if one set of good numbers will manage to bring a shift in sentiment about.”

In commodities, oil prices were bouncing back from recent heavy falls. West Texas Intermediate was 2.5% higher at $31.21 a barrel while Brent crude was up 2.4% to $31.60.

The gains helped to push the Stoxx 600 oil and gas index up 2.8%.

In corporate news, Sodexo rose after the food services and facilities management company posted first quarter organic revenue growth of 4.7%.

Dutch insurance group Aegon surged after announcing a €400m share buyback programme and lifting its 2015 dividend.

Elsewhere, Banco Popolare and Banca Popolare di Milano rallied following a report the banks were close to agreeing a deal on a merger.

In London, supermarket retailer Sainsbury's nudged up after its third quarter sales were better than expected and the company said the second half was likely to see an improvement.

Macroeconomic news was a little less cheery, however.

Figures released by Eurostat showed industrial production fell 0.7% in November from October.

The drop was steeper than the 0.3% slip expected by economists and marked the biggest month-on-month drop since August 2014.

On the year, production was up 1.1%, falling short of expectations for a 1.3% increase.