Europe midday: Travel and leisure issues rally on hopes of vaccine breakthrough

Stocks in Europe appear to be attempting a breakout to multi-month highs amid reports that positive news around Oxford University's Covid-19 vaccine candidate was imminent.

According to ITV's Richard Peston, "positive" preliminary data from that vaccine trials could be published in the Lancet on Thursday.

ITV further reported that, unlike many other vaccines, the one being developed at Oxford's Jenner Institute appeared to trigger both a significant antibody as well as T-cell response.

As of 1343 BST, Germany's Dax had topped its June highs and was ahead by 1.84% to 12,931.47 alongside a 2.49% advance for the French Cac-40 to 5,132.09, while the FTSE Mibtel was up by 2.1% at 20,297.86.

Pacing gains was the Stoxx 600's Travel&Leisure sub-index which was bounding ahead by 4.76% - although it remained well beneath the June highs.

Shares of IAG, Carnival and RyanAir were all near the top of the Stoxx 600 leaderboard, but the best performer was Atlantia SpA.

Earlier, toll-road operator Autostrade, which is majority owned by Atlantia, had tabled two fresh proposals to the government in Rome aimed at breaking their long-running dispute following the tragic 2018 collapse of a motorway bridge in Genoa.

In parallel, euro/dollar was edging higher by 0.33% to 1.1438.

To take note of, stocks had already started the session on the front foot following news of positive clinical trial data for another front-runner in the race to defeat Covid-19, US-based Moderna Therapeutics.

No major economic data were scheduled for release on the Continent.