European stocks mixed, eyes on U.S. data; DAX up 0.58%

Investing.com - European stock markets were mixed on Tuesday, trimming some of the morning’s gains following a downward trend in oil companies while investors eyed the release of highly anticipated U.S. consumer confidence data later in the day.

During European afternoon trade, the EURO STOXX 50 added 0.06%, France’s CAC 40 fell 0.28%, while Germany’s DAX 30 climbed 0.58%.

European stocks were higher earlier, boosted by Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke’s comments on Monday saying that further monetary accommodation is needed to bring about big gains in the U.S. jobs market, which he described as “far from normal,” despite a recent improvement.

The comments overshadowed a report by German research institute, Ifo showing earlier that its consumer climate index for Germany fell unexpectedly in March, ticking down to 5.9 from 6.0 the previous month. Analysts had expected the index to rise to 6.2 in March.

French multinational oil company Total plummeted 5.40% after the group slashed the oil production outlook at its Kharyaga project in northern Russia citing a revision of its reserves.

Air France-KLM Group also tumbled 2. 16% after auditors signaled that the airline’s Air France unit needs to refinance by the end of 2013, according to French daily La Tribune.

On the upside, financial stocks remained broadly higher, led by Italian lender Unicredit, up 3.02%, while Holland’s ING Group advanced 2.08%.

French lenders BNP Paribas and Societe Generale were also sharply higher, adding 1.52% and 1.39% respectively, while Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank rose 1.22% and 1.64%.

In London, commodity-heavy FTSE 100 eased 0.07% as energy stocks turned broadly lower.

BP was one of the top losers, with shares dropping 1.16%, while International Power declined 0.92% and BG Group tumbled 2.07%.

Xstrata held gains however, with shares up 1.48%, after the world’s largest exporter of power-station coal won approval to build the USD6.3 billion Wandoan coal mine in Australia. Shares in Kazakhmys also surged 3.73%.

Financial stocks also remained sharply higher, led by the Royal Bank of Scotland, up 4.54%, following a report that the U.K. government held talks to sell as much as a third of its stake in the lender to Abu Dhabi.

Shares in Barclays climbed 3.02% and HSBC Holdings advanced 1.65%, while Lloyds Banking added 0.45%.

In the U.S., equity markets pointed to a lower open. The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures pointed to a fall of 0.05%, S&P 500 futures signaled a 0.07% decline, while the Nasdaq 100 futures indicated a 0.01% loss.

Also Tuesday, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller house price index fell at an annualized rate of 3.8% in January from a year earlier, in line with expectations.

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Later in the day, the U.S. was to release industry data on consumer confidence.