French stocks eked out modest gains on Wednesday as Omicron worries eased somewhat and U.S. President Biden said it is still possible to reach a deal with Senator Joe Manchin to push the $2 trillion Build Back Better bill through Congress.
As European states take steps to counter Covid-19 surge, French health minister said the new Omicron coronavirus variant will be the dominant strain in France by early January and that the country could soon have around 100,000 new cases per day.
The benchmark CAC 40 was up 18 points, or 0.3 percent, at 6,983 after gaining 1.4 percent on Tuesday.
Lender Credit Agricole was little changed. Crédit Agricole Consumer Finance said it is investing in Cosmobilis, the holding company of ByMyCAR, the French car distribution group in Europe.
DAX Marginally Lower In Lackluster Trade
German stocks were little changed in cautious trade on Wednesday as concerns persisted about the outlook for global recovery amid an increase in Covid-19 cases around the world.
The benchmark DAX was down 6 points at 15,441 after rallying 1.4 percent the previous day.
Consumer major Beiersdorf AG rose over 1 percent. The company said that it has reached an agreement with the shareholders of Chantecaille Beaute Inc., USA, to buy prestige skin care business Chantecaille.
Delivery Hero shares jumped 5.4 percent. The food delivery group said it would scale down its Foodpanda operations in Germany and sell the subsidiary’s Japan unit.
Banks Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank as well as automakers BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen all were seeing modest losses.