LONDON – German shares underperformed other European stocks Tuesday after a closely watched survey reinforced market fears that the recovery from recession in Europe’s biggest economy remains subdued.

A solid opening on Wall Street — the Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.2 percent at 10,407.79 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 was unchanged at 1,108 — helped Europe’s markets come off their day’s lows.

The FTSE 100 index of leading shares was up 6.39 points, or 0.1 percent, at 5,358.46 while France’s CAC-40 was 11.88 points, or 0.3 percent, lower at 3,744.82.

Germany’s DAX fared worse, however, trading 29.86 points, or 0.5 percent, lower at 5,658.58.

The DAX had been trading modestly higher before the Ifo Institute reported that its business climate index for Germany fell to 95.2 in February — below its long-run average — from 95.8 the previous month.

The fall, which was the first in nearly a year, comes in the wake of similarly pessimistic reports from the likes of the ZEW institute and mounting evidence elsewhere that the recovery in the 16 country eurozone has been hit by the debt crisis that is afflicting Greece and threatening to spill over into other countries, such as Spain and Portugal.

And with figures for France also showing consumer spending down in January, analysts said there’s little chance that the pace of the eurozone recovery will pick up from the 0.1 percent pace recorded in the last quarter of 2009.

“The latest news points to a poor start to the year,” said Jennifer McKeown, senior European economist at Capital Economics, who still expect the eurozone to grow 1.5 percent this year but only if there are “signs of improvement in the domestic economy in the coming months.”

It’s not just the eurozone struggling — Bank of England governor King told a committee of lawmakers that the risks to the British recovery remained to the downside even though the more serious risks have been eliminated. Like the eurozone, the British economy grew by only 0.1 percent in the last three months of 2009.

King also said that the ratings agencies are bound to remain “somewhat uncertain” until Britain’s massive budget deficit is tackled but that he would be surprised by a downgrade to the country’s triple A bond rating.

King’s comments prompted some short-lived weakness in the pound as investors priced in a greater likelihood that the central bank would extend measures to boost the money supply and that interest rates will not be hiked from the current record low of 0.5 percent any time soon.

“The tone of these comments is sufficient to revitalize fears of double-dip recession in the U.K. although the revision to Q4 GDP on Friday could yet allay this threat,” said Jane Foley, research director at Forex.com.

“The combination of slow growth, terrible public finances and the risk of a hung parliament after the spring election is not a good one for the pound,” Foley added.

By mid-afternoon London time, the pound was trading 0.2 percent lower at $1.5442.

Meanwhile, the euro was 0.3 percent higher at $1.3561 while the dollar slipped 0.5 percent to 90.76 yen.

Currency traders will continue to be particularly interested in when the Greek government will announce a bond issue as it looks to roll over debt payments due soon.

The most crucial event this week across all markets, though, is likely to be what U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke tells lawmakers on Wednesday and Thursday — in particular what he says about last week’s decision by the Fed to raise its discount rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 0.75 percent. The discount rate is the rate banks pay for emergency loans from the Fed.

The discount rate rise last Thursday stoked some fears in the markets that the Fed was paving the way for possible increases in its benchmark funds rate later in the year. But the news that inflation remained extremely subdued in January coupled with comments from Fed officials suggest that the benchmark rate may not actually rise this year.

Earlier, most Asian markets rebounded, though Japan’s Nikkei 225 index failed to recoup all its early losses, closing 48.37 points, or 0.5 percent, lower at 10,352.10.

Among rising markets, Hong Kong reversed an early retreat to gain 1.2 percent to 20,623.00. South Korean shares edged up 0.1 percent but Australia’s market was flat.

Oil prices came off highs above $80, with a barrel of benchmark crude trading $1.01 lower at $79.30.

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AP Business Writer Jeremiah Marquez in Hong Kong contributed to this report.