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London - Europe's main stock markets rose on Tuesday as investors drew strength from mostly upbeat company earnings and bright economic data, analysts said.
However, shares in British bank Barclays plunged as the market was shocked by a bigger-than-expected rights issue.
In afternoon trading, London's FTSE 100 index of leading companies added 0.25% to 6 576.71 points, Frankfurt's DAX 30 advanced 0.39% to 8 291.01 points and the Paris CAC 40 climbed 0.50% to 3 988.44 points.
The euro inched higher to $1.3285 from $1.3264 in New York late on Monday and the dollar fell to ¥97.82 from ¥97.89.
On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold eased to $1 322.25 an ounce from $1 329.75 on Monday.
"European share markets maintain session gains as investors welcome economic data out of the region," ETX Capital analyst Ishaq Siddiqi said.
European business and consumer confidence edged up again in July, as other indicators also show improvement after months in the doldrums, official data signalled.
In another boost to the outlook, German consumer confidence continued to climb this month with growing expectations for economic growth and pay, a poll showed.
On the downside in London, Barclays shares dived 6.63% to 288.55 pence after it set out plans to raise £5.8bn by offering shares at a massive discount to shareholders in order to meet demands from regulators.
The rights issue will be offered at almost half price and is part of a far bigger effort to plug a vast hole of £12.8bn in the balance sheet.
Barclays made the announcement as it reported first-half results which showed a quadrupling of net profit, but the scale and terms of the rights issue sent the share price plunging.
Another big faller in London was BP. Its shares sank 3.10% to 452.90p.
The energy giant said Tuesday that its replacement cost profit -- which excludes gains or losses in the value of inventories -- jumped to $2.4bn in the second quarter, compared with $104m last time around.
However, stripping out write-downs on the value of oil fields and refineries in the United States last year, underlying replacement cost profit sank 24%.
It also said it will have to put more money aside for its fund to compensate 2010 oil spill victims, and announced taking a stake in a consortium to build a trans-Adriatic gas pipeline.
Shares in British vehicle engineering group GKN surged 6.30% to 347.7p after posting a 12% surge in first-half sales, buoyed by its purchase of Volvo's aerospace engine division.
Shares in broadcaster ITV jumped 6.30% to 167p following news of rising interim profits.
In Frankfurt, shares in Deutsche Bank fell by 3.68% to €34.59 in response to a halving of net profit in the second quarter.
Shares in advertising group Publicis, which had jumped on Monday on a merger with US group Omnicom, fell back 2.51% to €57.91.
Analysts re-assessed the hurdles for the deal and the risk that the new entity might lose some customers. They cited the cases of rival firms Pepsico and Coca-Cola, each of which is a customer of one of the merging ad firms.
Shares in electricity group EDF surged by 7.24% on unexpectedly strong first-half profits.
Asian markets had mostly rebounded on Tuesday from the previous day's losses on bargain buying in cautious trade ahead this week's closely watched policy meeting of the US Federal Reserve.
On Wall Street, shares also rose upon market open. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.43% and the broad-based S&P 500 added 0.41%, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index increased 0.40%.
Shares in French telecom-equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent surged by 10.91% to $2.44 on the Nasdaq.
The company announced a big loss on restructuring charges, but investors welcomed progress on its new strategy, on sales and with a partnership.
