European stocks opened higher on Wednesday, with mining stocks leading gains on higher metal prices, while Swiss drugmaker Roche boosted healthcare stocks.
As of 0.077 GMT, the pan-European STOXX 600 index was up 0.4%.
Mining stocks rose 0.9%, helped by rising prices for most base metals.
Roche rose 3.1% after the Swiss drugmaker said it learned of an accidental discovery in a study of its new immunotherapy for lung cancer patients, which uses an experimental class of drugs called anti-TIGIT.
The health index rose by 0.8%.
Investors will be watching the Euro-zone Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for August data, which will be released during the session, to gauge the state of the continent’s economy.
On the other hand, the PMIs of Germany, Great Britain, and France will also be in the crosshairs of investors.
At a stock level, Société Générale rose 2% after Morgan Stanley upgraded its rating on the French bank to overweight from equal weight.
Orsted rose 1.6% after the US Department of the Interior approved construction of a 704-megawatt (MW) wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island owned by the renewable energy giant.
(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun HK; Editing in Spanish by Flora Gomez)
