Europe open: Slight gains in stocks ahead of data deluge

The main European equity benchmarks edged higher in early trading, tracking overnight gains on Wall Street.

As of 09:30 the FTSE 100 was 0.50% higher at 6,608.92 points, the Cac-40 was up by 0.39% to 4,271.23 while the FTSE Mibtel was to be seen 0.12% lower at 19,050.65.

Traders were anxiously awaiting the release of a barrage of economic data Stateside, including the latest figures on US gross domestic product and for orders of durable goods.

Meanwhile in the corporate area, on Monday evening ratings agency Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook on the long-term debt issued by the likes of Royal Dutch Shell and BP to 'negative'. S&P cited a “dramatic deterioration” in the outlook for the price of oil.

In parallel, The Wall Street Journal reported French lender Societe Generale may have to push back its profitability targets in Russia by several years as a result of that country's economic troubles.

From a sectoral perspective, the best performing industrial groups within the DJ Stoxx 600 were: personal and household goods (0.70%), food (0.62%) and insurance (0.58%).

Acting as a backdrop, data out from France´s statistics office revealed that French household consumption expanded by 0.4% over the month in November, slightly less forecasts.

In Spain, the central bank forecast that economy would grow at a 2% clip in 2015.

The euro/dollar was essentially unchanged, rising 0.02% to 1.2234.

Front month Brent crude futures were up a tad, at $60.19 per barrel on the ICE.