European equities were trading higher on Wednesday morning as France's national statistics office posted a stable reading for its households' confidence index and commodities stocks got a boost from oil prices advancing after having fallen sharply on Tuesday.
Households' opinion of their personal financial situation in France in the past twelve months was virtually stable, according to data published by France's national statistics office, INSEE, on Wednesday. The agency's synthetic confidence index posted a reading of 97, unchanged from the 97 recorded in August and up from the reading of 96 scored in July. The index has had an average of 100 over the period 1987-2015.
In Germany, the Eurozone's largest economy, public debt was up by 0.7% at 2,037.5 billion euros ($2,282.01 billion) in the first half of 2016, according to the nation's federal statistics agency Destatis. The debt of the Federation rose by 21.4 billion euros or 1.7% to 1,286.4 billion euros from 31 December 2015.
Oil prices, meanwhile, were advancing with West Texas Intermediate ( WTI ) crude oil, the main US oil benchmark, up by 0.5% at $44.91 per barrel at the time of writing after having slumped 2.7% on Tuesday while Brent oil, the international oil benchmark, was 0.6% higher at $46.84 per barrel after having lost 2.9% on the previous day.
In equities, pay television broadcasting and home communications services Sky was up by 2.6% on London's FTSE 100 Index, followed by commodities stocks Anglo American and Rio Tinto, 2.2% and 1.9% higher, respectively.
On Frankfurt's DAX, gas and engineering company Linde, was 3.2% higher, followed by Deutsche Bank, up by 2.2% and Infineon Technologies, a manufacturer of semiconductors, 1.1% higher. Kidney dialysis company Fresenius was 0.9% higher. And, on Paris' CAC-40, communications company Publicis Groupe and auto manufacturer Renault were both 2.1% higher, followed by Orange, a telecommunications company, up by 1.3%.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 Index was 1.13% higher, London's FTSE 100 Index was up by 0.85%, Frankfurt's DAX was 1.32% higher and Paris' CAC-40 was up by 1.25% at the time of writing.
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
