A buoyant drug sector and a rally by retailer Metro helped prop up Europe's bourses yesterday, leaving them poised to end the month sharply higher as concerns over corporate earnings ease.
The reporting season advanced at a cracking pace and revealed the extent to which firms are slashing costs to counter weak demand and helping reassure investors.
EADS, the parent company of European plane maker Airbus, said it would launch a new plan to save a billion euros in cash this year, sending its shares up 1.3 per cent to 8.33 euros.
"We have had quite a lot of interesting stuff from European companies, with disappointing top lines, but better-than-expected cash flows and margins," said Michael Macphee, a European fund manager at Baillie Gifford. "There is a lot of self-help, which is encouraging."
By 1626 GMT, with only Frankfurt still trading, the FTSE Eurotop 300 index was down just 0.2 per cent at 820.41 points, with advancing shares outpacing decliners by a slim margin in good volume.
The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index was flat at 2,321 points. The Eurotop 300 is up 10.2 per cent for the month, 20 per cent above its six-year closing low of mid-March, and only four per cent away from its level at the start of the year.
"Overall we are bumping along not too badly, and that may carry on for a while," Macphee said.
London's FTSE 100 index was up 8.7 per cent for April, its best monthly gain since September 1997.
Spanish shares were a drag on Europe's advance, with the IBEX index down more than one per cent as the country's second-biggest bank, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, sank 2.6 per cent to 9.02 euros after disappointing results, hit by Latin American currency depreciation.
Frankfurt, Paris and Zurich were higher.
The strong euro, at a four-year high against the dollar, would normally hurt equities by hitting dollar-related earnings.
"What seems to be going on is related to some asset allocation shift to Europe, and the euro perhaps. It has become clear that growth recovery is not likely to be particularly strong in the US," Macphee said.
News from the United States appeared to confirm this. Business in the Midwest, as measured by the Chicago purchasing management index, contracted for a second month. The benchmark's national peer, the Institute of Supply Management index, is due today.