European shares gain as financials, miners help

European equities rose in afternoon trade on Wednesday, gathering strength from positive U.S. stocks, as banks advanced after recent losses and miners followed firmer metals prices.

At 1351 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was 0.4 percent higher at 763.65 points after falling as low as 747.99 points earlier in the session.

Among financial stocks, Standard Chartered Bank rose 2.6 percent, Barclays was up 1.8 percent, Societe Generale gained 3.1 percent and Credit Agricole jumped 7 percent.

A rise of about 1 percent in key base metals such as copper, aluminium and zinc helped miners. BHP Billiton, Anglo American, Rio Tinto and Eurasian Natural Resources rose between 0.2 percent and 3.5 percent.

But analysts said the market was expected to remain under pressure as corporate earnings were likely to remain poor and economic data continued to paint a bleak picture.

"It is still too early to put all your eggs in the equity basket and we believe the markets will remain range-bound for the next week or two," said Ryan Kneale, market Analyst at BetsForTraders.com.

Aluminium producer Alcoa kicked off earnings season with a first-quarter net loss that was worse than estimated as metal prices and the auto industry slumped.

And new figures showed German exports fell for a fifth month running in February, and imports slumped, signalling the economic downturn likely worsened for the world's largest exporter in the first quarter of 2009.

U.S. benchmark indexes were trading 0.7 to 1.5 percent higher.

Across Europe, the FTSE 100 index, Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 were up 0.1-1.0 percent.