Gains among commodity stocks and a rebound in banks underpinned the broader market and helped offset a number of disappointing earning updates, sending the pan-European STOXX 600 index up 0.2 percent. The DAX, Germany's country benchmark index, was up 0.3 percent.
Enrico Vaccari, fund manager at Consultinvest, said he was upbeat on prospects for European equities because of a strong economic recovery, a favourable monetary policy outlook and a weaker euro.
"It's hard to find any negative news. Historically the period between November and March has been favourable for stocks and barring surprises 2017 will be a year to remember," he said.
The STOXX 600 is up 9.8 percent so far this year, while the DAX is up 17.6 percent.
Top gainer on the STOXX on Tuesday was oil services firm Tullow Oil, up 5.1 percent. Energy stocks were supported as oil prices held on to gains after posting the biggest rise in six weeks a day earlier, buoyed by moves by Saudi Arabia's crown prince to tighten his grip on power.
The oil and gas index was he biggest sectoral gainer in Europe, up 1.3 percent at its highest since April.
Among top gainers were shares in Imperial Brands. The company reported full-year sales roughly in line with expectations, helped by an improvement in the second half, and announced it would expand its efforts in the vaping market.
But a number of other companies fell sharply following their updates.
BMW fell 2 percent after its third-quarter earnings fell 5.9 percent, near the low-end forecast in a Reuters poll, due to upfront costs for new technologies and models. The world's second-largest luxury automaker however slightly lifted its outlook for pretax profit this year.
The biggest fallers on the STOXX were shares in chipmaker Dialog Semiconductor , down 6.6 percent following a cautious outlook for the fourth quarter.
Also under pressure following their updates were shares in Danish shipping group A.P. Moller Maersk, Siemens Gamesa and London-listed security group G4S, all down between 4.5 and 7.1 percent.
In spite of Tuesday's disappointing updates the earnings season in Europe is progressing well with six out of ten companies on the MSCI Europe having already reported results. According to Thomson Reuters IBES data, 58 percent of them have beaten analyst expectations and 10 percent were in line.