Europe close: Stocks finish the session little changed
Stocks on the Continent ended the session little changed but off their worst levels, as investors drew encouragement from a positive start to trading Stateside.
By the closing bell, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was 0.07% or 0.26 points higher at 390.54, alongside a dip of 0.02% to 13,070.02 for the German Dax and a gain of 0.08% to 5,368.84 for the French Cac-40.
Tech stocks finished well off their worst levels of the day, with the Stoxx 600's gauge for that sector having traded nearly a percentage point lower earlier on reports that Apple was set to lower its forecasts iPhoneX shipments for the current quarter due to poor demand.
In the end, the Stoxx 600 technology sub-index only gave back 0.24% to 443.67.
Helping to offset the above, the Stoxx 600 Basic Resources subindex added 1.18% in the wake of renewed measures out of Beijing to curb pollution.
Jiangxi Copper, the largest Chinese producer of that base metal, was ordered by officials to halt production for at least a week before further assessment to combat pollution levels. Prices were also underpinned by expectations of strong demand from China next year.
"This period between Christmas and New Year is often very quiet, with politicians and central banks endeavouring to wrap everything up ahead of the holiday period. With the US having got tax reform over the line last week and kicked the budget issue back to January at the last minute, investors have been left with little to turn their attention to.
"News flow aside, trade during this week is often very thin with large numbers of people taking the week off and the lack of volatility we've seen so far isn't exactly drawing traders back in. With the data calendar not looking particularly full over the coming days, I don’t hold much hope for conditions improving dramatically," said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Think Markets UK.
The economic calendar was light on Wednesday, with Spain's national office of statistics having reported a 2.9% year-on-year increase in retail sales for November (consensus: 0.8%).
In the corporate space, some of the Continent's largest carmakers were in focus after BMW and Dailer detailed the impact which tax cuts in the US were expected to have on their bottome line for 2017.
The former estimated that net profits would be increased by between €950m and €1.55bn, while at Daimler the boost was seen reaching €1.7bn.