Global stock markets were mostly firmer in quiet holiday trade yesterday, calming down after recent turmoil and as investors found little new in a French-German summit on the eurozone debt crisis.

Dealers said the meeting Tuesday between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel continued the slow, uncertain move towards greater eurozone policy integration but produced little else of wider note.

A proposal for a Europe-wide tax on financial transactions was dismissed as old hat, likely to be ineffective at best and at worst, to drive business out of Europe into other centres.

The news hit stock market operators such as Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext, which plan to merge, especially hard.

US stocks picked up at the opening, posting modest gains on the back of strong corporate results, especially in the retail sector, but then slipped back.

In London, the FTSE 100 index of leading companies closed down 0.49 per cent at 5,331.60 points. In Frankfurt, the main DAX index shed 0.77 per cent to 5,948.94 points but in Paris the CAC 40 gained 0.73 per cent to 3,254.34 points.

Milan’s FTSE Mib index added 1.27 per cent and Madrid gained 0.62 per cent.

The euro was at $1.4428 after falling initially, compared with $1.4407 in New York late Tuesday. The dollar slipped to 76.50 yen from 76.80 yen.

Commerzbank analysts said the results of the Sarkozy-Merkel summit “are rather disappointing and are unlikely to support the euro much.”

Traditional safe-haven gold was at around $1,787 an ounce.

Analysts said a Sarkozy-Merkel proposal to centralise eurozone policy under European Union president Herman Van Rompuy at least continued the push towards tighter eurozone controls so as to ultimately control the debt problems.

“It’s not eye-poppingly original because it institutionalises an existing practice,” said Christian Parisot, an economist with French investment managers Aurel.