Mixed day for European stocks

Having spent most of Thursday in the red Europe’s stock markets trimmed those losses late in the session as gains in oil shares and a rally on Wall Street helped to overshadow investors’ persistent concerns about a looming recession.

Banks were the biggest losers. Santander and UBS fell nearly five per cent. Carmakers also suffered with Daimler down over one per cent. But those losses were offset by gains in commodity and defensive stocks, such as food makers.

Major oil producers were the major gainers in Europe as the crude price gained more than 3.5 percent ahead of an OPEC meeting which could cut output and as investors went bargain hunting for energy company shares which has been battered of late.

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