Wednesday's opening of European stock markets is mixed as banking concerns come back to the forefront.

Even after a few U.S. tech companies reported great profits, Wednesday's opening of European stock markets is mixed as banking concerns come back to the forefront.

With their quarterly profit reports on Tuesday, Swiss lender UBS and Spain's Santander—the second-largest lender in the eurozone based on of market value—disappointed investors.

After disclosing $100 billion in client withdrawals last month, First Republic Bank's stock fell overseas, raising worries for the whole U.S. regional banking industry.

Stock markets gained ground overnight as a consequence of Microsoft and Alphabet, reporting first-quarter results that exceeded market forecasts.

The German GfK consumer mood index for the future came in at -25.7 for May, up from the previously reported level of -29.3 in terms of economic statistics.

Later in the event, a number of ECB policymakers are slated to speak. They could provide hints about how the monetary policy of the central bank will develop in the future.

The primary unanswered issue is whether the European Central Bank would increase interest rates by a quarter-point or a half-point in the first few days of May, as is largely anticipated.

Following significant losses in the previous session, oil prices increased on Wednesday as declining gasoline stocks in the world's top oil consumer suggested that demand would remain strong.

Late Tuesday, data from the API revealed that US crude stocks decreased by slightly over 6 million barrels last week, above the 1.7 million barrel expectation, while US petrol inventories decreased by 1.9 million barrels.

(investing.com, Reuters.com)