Late buying pushed European stock markets to close modestly higher Wednesday but investors around the world remained focused on key economic news emerging in the next few days about the pace of the global economic recovery.

Meanwhile, gold fell modestly from its all-time high as the dollar clawed back some ground.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares closed up 15.22 points, or 0.3 percent, at 5,327.39 while Germany's DAX rose 5.07 points, or 0.1 percent, to 5,781.68. The CAC-40 in France was up 20.18 points, or 0.5 percent, to 3,795.92.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average was down 10.58 points, or 0.1 percent, at 10,461 around midday New York time while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.4 point to 1,109.26.

Markets are awaiting a raft of economic news over the coming couple of days, including Thursday's monetary policy meeting of the European Central Bank and Friday's U.S. nonfarm payrolls report for November. The jobs data often set the tone in the markets for a week or two.

If investors conclude the U.S. economy is losing steam, then that could pave the way for a bout of profit-taking following an eight-month bull run. Further evidence of a strong U.S. economic recovery could yield more buying.

The main piece of economic data Wednesday was that private sector employers in the U.S. shed 169,000 jobs in November, according to the ADP payrolls firm. Though that was slightly worse than market expectations, October's job losses were revised downward.

As a result, there was little change in market expectations for Friday's government payrolls data _ the consensus is that November U.S. non-farm payrolls fell by around 120,000 but that the unemployment rate held steady at a 26-year high of 10.2 percent.

So far this week, investor jitters related to Dubai's debt problems have calmed down amid hopes that Dubai World, the government investment company, will have around $26 billion worth of its debts restructured. Last week, the company _ with a total of $60 billion worth of debt _ sent shockwaves around global financial markets when it said it was looking to postpone forthcoming debt payments until May.

The hope in the markets is that Dubai's problems will not affect the global financial. However commercial stocks underperformed once again Wednesday, with Commerzbank AG for example, the biggest faller on the DAX.

"While Dubai World's debt doubts don't seem to have caused the full-scale panic that was perhaps feared, traders still seem slightly hesitant about the entire financial sector," said David Jones, chief market strategist at IG Index.