Advancers

Banks bucked the overall downtrend and advanced. Barclays added 1.1% in the light of recent bid talks, while KBC in Belgium gained 1.9% after sturdy results this week. Capitalia in Italy advanced 2.2%.

Deutsche Börse gained 1% after Citigroup hiked its price target on the German stock exchange operator.

Decliners

Miners listed in London influenced the negative trend on the markets the most after Merrill Lynch reduced its rating on the sector and lowered some indivdual stocks. Xstrata, which was lowered to neutral, shed 3.1%, while Antofagasta and Kazakhmys, both reduced to sell shed 2.8% and 3.1% respectively.

German truckmaker Man, declined 1% on worries it may sweeten its unfriendly bid for Swedish rival Scania after it said on Thursday it was prolonging its offer period. Scania was off 0.3%.

Oil and gold

Crude oil for January delivery advanced 31 cents to $62.80 a barrel in electronic trading on the NYME, up from $62.49 a barrel on Thursday. January Brent crude at London ICE Futures exchange gained 33 cents to $62.90 a barrel.

Currencies

In early European trading, the euro traded at $1.3284, up from $1.3280 in New York late Thursday. In England, the Bank of England abstained from hiking its rate and held it firm at 5 percent Thursday. The British pound traded on Friday at $1.9674, up from $1.9620 on Thursday. The dollar gained slightly to 115.32 Japanese yen from 115.29 yen.