Europe open: Stocks push further into record territory

Germany's Dax followed US stocks further into record territory as investors waited on a raft of US central bank speakers scheduled for later in the day.

As of 0930 BST the benchmark Stoxx 600 was edging higher by 0.23% to 392.86, alongside an advance of 0.41% to 12,941.50 in Germany's Dax and gains of 0.48% to 5,336.27 for the French Cac-40.

Commenting on the situation in markets, Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said optimism regarding the prospect of serious economic reforms in France was a chief factor pushing markets higher. Yet there were also risks, according to Hewson.

"Despite yesterday’s gains, the best in six weeks, the CAC-40 still remains well below the peaks seen in the aftermath of Macron’s Presidential win at the beginning of May.

"Nicolas Sarkozy also had a healthy majority in 2007 with 318 seats and still came a cropper, with a range of reforms that saw the unions bring the country to a standstill. Let’s hope Mr Macron has more luck with his reform program, though history tells us that it could well be a bumpy ride," he said.

Front-and-centre on investors' radar on Tuesday were speeches from three US central bank officials scheduled for later in the day. They included Boston Fed chief Eric Rosengren at 1100 BST, followed by Fed vice-president Stanley Fischer at 1300 BST and Dallas Fed boss Robert Kaplan at 2000 BST.

The day before New York Fed chief William Dudley told a roundtable discussion in Pittsburgh he was optismistic about the US economy and argued in favour of continuing to tighten monetary policy.

On the economic front, figures from the European Central Bank showed that the euro area's current account surplus printed at €22.2bn for April.

Factory gate prices in Germany slipped from a 3.4% year-on-year clip in April to 2.8% for May (consensus: 2.9%), according to the country's Ministry of Finance.

Still on the economic calendar for Tuesday, Belgium's central bank was set to publish its consumer confidence survey for June at 1400 BST.

In corporate news, Safran announced that China's ICBC Leasing inked an $1.1bn deal to buy its LEAP-1A engines to power 40 Airbus A320neo airplanes.

Mediaset acquired an 11.1% stake in Mediaset Premium from Spain's Telefonica.

A consortia of firms, Total among them, won the 15th auction for a shallow water oil and gas block in Mexico.