European shares rose in late trade yesterday after encouraging US economic data and gains in energy and utility stocks.
But the war in Iraq continued to dictate overall sentiment and trading volumes were average, amid worries that the conflict could be prolonged and exert further pressure on a fragile world economy.
"We won't have a clear idea of how long this war could last for another few weeks or so," said Rolf Elgeti, European strategist at Commerzbank, who added that most buying interest was still from investors looking to unwind short hedge trades because the market had moved against them in recent weeks.
"Very few people are putting new cash into the market." By 1647 GMT, the FTSE Eurotop 300 index of pan-European blue chips was up 1.2 per cent at 787 points, having dropped more than two per cent earlier in the day and posted its biggest one-day fall in almost half a year on Monday.
The euro zone Euro Stoxx 50 index jumped 2.7 per cent. The Eurotop 300 fell more than four per cent on Monday, retracing some of the 19 per cent rebound seen in the benchmark after it hit a six-year closing low on March 12, as investors anticipated that the war would be over in days.
US-led forces are poised to launch an assault on Baghdad's outer defences in what UK Prime Minister Tony Blair described as a "crucial moment" in the six-day old war.
Investment managers Barclays Private Clients said there was a 40-60 per cent probability of a 2-5 week war.
Spain's Iberdrola jumped 3.2 per cent after it was surprisingly beaten in a regional privatisation tender, in a development which was seen boosting Gas Natural's hostile takeover bid for the utility.
Other utility stocks such as Suez and Germany's RWE also rose strongly. Suez skidded 13 per cent on Monday as investors continued to worry over long-standing cash flow concerns.
Heavily-weighted oil stocks tracked a firmer Brent crude oil price, which rose above $26.50 a barrel as supply disruptions in key producer Nigeria compounded Middle Eastern supply concerns as a result of the war.
Anglo-Dutch Shell, France's TotalFinaElf and Italy's Eni rose between 3.0 and 3.6 per cent each.
Britain's Imperial Chemical Industries led the fallers after the chemicals giant said poor trading in food flavourings and rising raw material costs would hit first quarter profits hard.
That sent its shares down 38 per cent, and rocked peers such as Dutch group Akzo Nobel, which fell 4.4 per cent.
Deutsche Post dropped 5.9 per cent after saying it would pay $1.05 billion for the ground delivery operations of Airborne, America's third biggest freight shipper.
Heading the risers were shares in Cable & Wireless, with a gain of 22 per cent, after the British telecoms group settled a tax liability that had weighed on its shares and in the process freed up 1.5 billion pounds set aside in escrow.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.7 per cent and the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite added 1.3 per cent.
Earlier, investors were given small cause to cheer after the US consumer confidence index slipped to 62.5 in March, broadly in line with expectations, and was upwardly revised to 64.8 for the previous month.
"The risk was that it would have fallen a lot more, mainly because of the impact of the war," said economist Kevin Grice at American Express Bank, citing other recent soft data from the world's biggest economy.