The Nikkei's Makiko Utsuda provides an overview of the trading day in Tokyo.

Grainne Gilmore, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank, told CNBC, "It is very much a regional picture, the UK can¿t just be broad brush stroked with one figure, but if you look at the UK it is very much a patchwork effect the North is maybe not performing as well, when you further South things start to pick up and then when you hit London and especially the centre of London, prices are doing very well they are up 12 percent on the year, compared to an annual average of around one percent growth in 2011."

Jens Zimmerman, equity analyst at ABN AMRO Private Banking, told CNBC, "our point right now is that because of this risk of very high oil price volatility with Iran on the upside and possibly also Greece to the downside, this is not an environment where the energy sector overall could outperform the broader market very easily. We have seen that in the past that as soon as the oil price volatility increases the earnings visibility of the companies decreases."

Dirk Becker, deputy head of banking sector research at Kepler Capital Markets, told CNBC, "the figures themselves were probably not so important, what is probably more important is that they are going for this ten percent capital increase which is one of their contingency plans to meet the stress test results and I don't think it was necessarily expected that they would do this now."

Brett Richards, CEO, Avocet Mining, told CNBC, "We are seeing pressures on West Africa on fuel, on national labour and on some consumables and yes we have seen increases in our cost structure from kind of the high 500 dollars per ounce to upwards of 800 dollars and not unlike some of our peers in the industry we are experiencing some of those similar pressures."