LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - European bank shares pulled further ahead on the back of optimism around their US peers and as market interest rates continued their push higher.
However, losses mounted outside of that sector on the back of a stronger euro and given the possibility of tighter monetary policy around the world going forward.

As of 1158 BST, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by 0.37% to 384.41, alongside a drop of 0.39% for the Dax to 12,598.88, a decline for the Cac-40 of 0.76% to 5,212.89.

In parallel, the Stoxx 600 gauge of lenders' shares was advancing 1.68% to 186.15 while euro-dollar was up by 0.25% to 1.1406.

Acting as a backdrop, separate gauges of economic confidence within the single currency bloc revealed sentiment was at its strongest since at least a decade ago.

German consumers were in a slightly more buoyant mood in July, according to consultancy GfK. Its consumer confidence index rose by 0.2 points to 10.6 (consensus: 10.4). Nonetheless, a subindex of Germans' income expectations was at its loftiest since Reunification.

In parallel, the European Commission's economic sentiment index jumped from a reading of 109.2 for May to 111.1 in June - its best print since August 2007.

"All countries, sectors and pillars of demand are driving the upswing. That makes the upswing all the more resilient. It would probably even weather a hasty withdrawal of monetary accommodation. But this is not to come anyway since the ECB is simply in no hurry to do that despite all the noise in recent days," said Florian Hense at Berenberg.

Harmonised Spanish consumer prices advanced at a 1.6% year-on-year (consensus: 1.5%) pace in June, down four tenths of a percentage point from the prior month.

Still on the economic calendar for later in the session were German CPI figures for June at 1300 BST.

In the States, the spotlight would be on the latest set of initial weekly US jobless claims and revised first quarter GDP data.

On the corporate front, stock in Deutsche Bank was higher in part after a US federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that accused it of failing in its ant-money laundering controls.

The Brazilian unit of Carrefour filed for an initial public offering that could see it raise between $1.4bn and $1.7bn.

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