Europe close: Italian stocks outperform on gains in banks
Stocks finished well of their lows of the session, helped by a positive start to trading over on Wall Street, with Italian issues outperforming.
At the closing bell the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by -0.18% or 0.71 points at 388.50, alongside a 0.32% or 40.53 point fall in Germany's Dax to 12,774.26 and a retreat of 0.37% or 19.39 points to 5,274.26 in the Cac-40.
Milan's FTS Mibtel defied the odds, gaining after Intesa Sanpaolo said it was prepared to purchase certain assets from two of the country's trobled lenders, Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca's.
Front month Brent crude futures were again moving lower, falling 2.86% to $44.74 a barrel on the ICE despite official weekly US oil inventory data which revealed a second consecutive weekly drop in crude stockpiles.
Weighing on sentiment, overnight analysts at Macquarie cut their projections for the average price of Brent oil in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
For 2018, they now saw Brent trading at $49.33 on average, down from the $55.75 level they had previously estimated, while in 2019 it was now seen at $52.75, as opposed to a previous forecast of $60.63.
"Our long-term forecast reductions reflect productivity gains in tight oil, as well as greater shale resource prospectivity, and falling break-evens globally," the Australian broker said.
Macquarie also downgraded stock in BP and Royal Dutch Shell to 'underperform' and 'neutral', respectively.
Acting as a further drag on sentiment towards French equities was news that Francois Bayrou, the leader of the MoDem party had resigned. A spokesperson for the Elysee said it was a "personal decision".
Bayrou's announcement followed the decision by the country's European Affairs Minister Marielle de Sarnez, also on Wednesday, to step down.
On Monday, the defence minister Sylvie Goulard handed in her own resignation after a preliminary probe into her party's funding.
In other corporate headlines, stock in Air Berlin chief Thomas Winkelmann told Tagesspiegel his group no longer required state guarantees.