Major stock markets outside the United States ended on Tuesday.
Pharma stocks topped the list of gainers in Europe for a second day running, as Swiss rivals Roche and Novartis rose by 5.9 and 3.6 percent each. Data that showed a worse-than-expected fall in sales of US homes helped fuel existing expectations for further aggressive cuts in US rates, driving the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares up by as much as 1.4 percent.