Euro Stocks End Higher on Late Rally

European stocks staged a late rally on Wednesday, ending a roller-coaster session up 0.5 percent, helped by rising defensive drugmakers and telecoms while commodity shares pared heavy losses but stayed in red.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares unofficially closed 0.5 percent higher at 829.33 points, after sinking more than 2.5 percent earlier in the session.

Vodafone rose 4.6 percent, Novartis gained 4.5 percent and AstraZeneca added 5.2 percent.

Energy and mining shares, hit by renewed worries that the global economic slump would dent appetite for commodities, trimmed heavy losses but remained in negative territory, with Rio Tinto falling 9.3 percent and Royal Dutch Shell dropping 1 percent.

"The market is really looking for a direction," Emmanuel Morano, head of equity management at La Francaise des Placements, in Paris.

"I think we're building some sort of floor right now. People are digesting the flow of profit warnings and pricing in a quite apocalyptic scenario," he said.

Banks ended on the downside, with Credit Suisse tumbling 8.9 percent on concerns the bank's corporate credits and commercial mortgage investments could be further affected by the economic downturn, pushing the bank into another quarterly loss.

Traders said investors' attention is now turning to Credit Suisse after rival UBS, which was badly hit by the credit crisis earlier on, was bailed out by the Swiss state.

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