Europe's leading stock markets shook off early weakness Wednesday and closed stronger in line with gains on Wall Street, where investors cheered better-than-expected bank earnings.

In London, the FTSE 100 index of leading shares rose 0.28 percent to 5257.85 points while in Paris the CAC 40 added 0.05 percent to 3873.22 points. The Frankfurt Dax added 0.37 percent to finish at 5833.49 points.

But several markets elsewhere failed to perk up during the day, with Madrid shedding 0.38 percent, Milan 0.21 percent and Brussels 0.25 percent. Share prices rose 0.18 percent in Amsterdam.

US stocks rallied as the market focused on healthy earnings from the banking sector and brushed aside a disappointing quarterly report from Boeing.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average at mid-day was up 0.47 percent to 10088.94 pointss while the Nasdaq was likewise 0.47 percent stronger at 2173.66 points.

The market reacted to news of record profits for banking giant Wells Fargo and positive earnings for Morgan Stanley after three consecutive quarterly losses.

Fred Dickson, market strategist at DA Davidson & Company, said the earnings this season have been generally strong and some have been stellar.

"As the global recession has unthawed, some of the results have been close to amazing, particularly those delivered by Caterpillar which dramatically topped estimates and then lifted current guidance for the fourth quarter," he said.

"While we believe that some of these dramatic positive earnings surprises were already built into the stock market at current price levels, we also believe that if the current trend of positive surprises continues, investor enthusiasm for stocks will continue to mount and that market pullbacks, such as we experienced (on Tuesday), will continue to be very short and shallow."

The main disappointment Wednesday was a worse-than-expected loss of 1.56 billion dollars for aerospace giant Boeing, which also lowered its profit guidance for the year.

The US banking sector performance revived late-day European trading sentiment, which had sagged earlier Wednesday in response to a tepid performance on the Tokyo exchange and a fall of 0.84 percent Tuesday on Wall Street in response to weak US housing market data.

In London, Anthony Grech of IG Index said investors see continued gains in share prices, albeit at a somewhat slower pace than was evident in July and August.

Retailers were the day's big winners on the London Stock Exchange. Tesco jumped 2.33 percent to 392.45 pence, Next added 1.20 percent to 1853 pence and Morrison rose 0.99 percent to 275.8 pence.

In Paris the day's recovery was constrained by disappointing results from auto maker Peugeot, which shed 4.84 percent to finish at 23 euros.

Also weighing on the Paris market was STMicroelectronics, which lost 5.30 percent to at 6.23 euros after reporting worse-than-expected results.

In Frankfurt, Deutsche Bank surprised analysts with net earnings of 1.4 billion euros in the third quarter and a capital-to-risk ratio of 11.7 percent.

The results "diminish the risk of a capital increase," said Konrad Becker, an analyst with Merk Fink.

But Deutsche Bank shares nonetheless lost 2.42 percent to 54 euros in response to profit taking.

In Asian trading Wednesday, Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei-225 index edged down 0.03 percent to close at 10 333.39 points before the release on Thursday of Chinese gross domestic product data as well as Japan's trade figures.