Europe midday: Stocks rise despite uncertainty in Greece
The main European equity benchmarks were holding on to modest gains come midday, ahead of the release of a barrage of economic data in the US.
As of 12:03 the FTSE 100 was 0.34% higher at 6,599.09 points, the Cac-40 was up 0.64% at 4,281.64 while the FTSE Mibtel rose 0.22% to 19,148.22.
Gains came despite news that Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had failed to garner enough support for his presidential candidate in a second round of voting. Parliamentarians will now be called on to vote for a third and final time on 29 December.
Should Samaras fail again he will be forced to into snap elections in February, which might have an unsettling effect on global financial markets, especially if a coalition led by left-wing Syriza party wins power as looks increasingly likely.
Meanwhile in the corporate arena, 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' late on Monday. S&P cited a “dramatic deterioration” in the outlook for the price of oil.
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.
Data from France´s statistics office revealed that French household consumption expanded by 0.4% over the month in November, slightly less than forecasts.
In Spain, the central bank estimated that economy would grow at a 2% clip in 2015.
The best performing industrial sectors within the DJ Stoxx 600 were: construction (1.02%), retail (0.75%) and utilities (0.62%).
The euro/dollar was essentially unchanged, off by 0.02% to 1.2227.
Front month Brent crude futures were advancing 0.98% to $60.71 per barrel on the ICE.