Burberry and LVMH on the lead in Europe

Wednesday saw markets worldwide digest quite a handful of corporate releases from key actors within the apparel sector.

Additionally, a World Bank report that said global growth is set to accelerate in 2014 boosted European major indexes.

European benchmark indexes closed higher Wednesday, boosted by a World Bank report that on global growth to be helped up in 2014. Wall Street´s strongest performance in 2014 over the previous session also helped, highlighted analysts in London.

Noteworthy was the Italian index, the FTSE MIB, which on Wednesday was back to levels not seen since the country became engulfed in the euro zone debt crisis, as noted by the 'FT'. The Italian benchmark reached the 20,000 points on

Wednesday for the first time since July 2011. In the same vein, its German peer DAX gained 2.03 percent.

Meanwhile, Burberry Group led London’s FTSE 100 wins on Wednesday. The quintessentially British reported double-digit growth in both comparable sales and its Asia-Pacific business for the three months ended in December.

The fashion retailer, famed for its distinctive tartan, added 5.5 percent on retail revenue increased by 14 percent year-on-year to 528 million pounds, meeting analysts’ estimates. E-commerce sales through digital channels – significant growth in which has eluded many famous high street names – outpaced growth through traditional brick-and-mortar outlets.

The region’s main indices made a steady start to trade, with some signs of a tentative return to risk, as both the financial and resource sectors rose in tandem. In Paris, LVMH mirrored Burberry´s strength, becoming the top performer and lifting the CAC 40 by 0.6 percent. Shares at the world's luxury largest group gained 1.9 percent to close in the region of 128.6 euros.

Still in Europe, Hennes & Mauritz, parent group to H&M, said its flagship's total sales in December 2013, including value added tax or VAT, and increased 10 percent in local currencies. Adjusted for calendar effects, total sales grew by just above 12 percent, the company explained in a note.

However, December sales at the world’s second-largest clothing retailer were in line with expectations, but down from the 21 percent rise in November. Calendar effects contributed around 3 percent in the strong sales development in November; the company reminded when commenting the results.

The Swedish company added it will take into account only stores open for more than a year as web operations make calculations more complex. As at December 31, 2013, total number of stores was 3,176, up from 2,809 stores at the end of December 2012.

The Swedish retailer is scheduled to publish its full-year report for the financial year 2012/2013 on January 30.