European shares edged higher on Tuesday, with UK-listed banks gaining after the Bank of England announced the results of its bank “stress tests’’ and said credit conditions in the country had largely recovered from the financial crisis.
Shares in Standard Chartered Bank, Lloyds Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays rose 1.2 to 2.7 per cent, helping the European banking index to gain more than 1 per cent, after the BoE said major UK lenders did not have to take any action.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was up 0.3 per cent at 1,521.78 points by 0818 GMT, also supported by a rise of 1 per cent in the STOXX 600 Basic Resources index as metals prices rose following a weaker dollar.
However, Linde fell 10 per cent after the world’s biggest industrial gases company by sales, cut its 2017 profit target, citing slower industrial production growth weighing on its industrial gases unit.