Europe midday: Stocks mixed as investors eye Covid news, progress on US stimulus

Markets across Europe were trading in mixed fashion come midday on Wednesday despite the previous day's selling on Wall Street triggered by researchers from two prominent US universities who criticised the limited amount of data published on a trial of one of the most promising vaccine candidates against Covid-19.

Researchers from John Hopkins University and Yale questioned the data published by Moderna Therapeutics around its early clinical trial results for its vaccine candidate, although the latter did say they were "cautiously optimistic".

Traders were also keeping tabs on the news-flow from Capitol Hill around a possible third package of government support measures for the US economy.

"Questions over the validity of the Moderna trial have eased recent market strength, although traders are wary of betting against the wave of stimulus," said Josh Mahony at IG.

"However, that stimulus is likely to maintain a bullish trend for gold."

As of 1324 GMT, the Stoxx 600 was adding 0.28% to 340.45, alongside a 0.38% advance for the German Dax to 0.40% to 11,120.65 and a dip of 0.17% to 4,450.52 for the French Cac-40.

In parallel, front month Brent crude oil futures were up by 2.57% to $35.54 a barrel on the ICE.

There was little in terms of fresh economic data to guide investors.

However, Eurostat did revise down its initial estimate for headline euro area consumer prices in April from a 0.4% rise year-on-year to 0.3%.

Its estimate of core prices was also revised lower, from 0.9% to 0.7%.