LONDON (Reuters) – Analysts are upgrading their expectations for Europe’s fourth-quarter earnings season, which has seen a steep increase in companies announcing consensus-beating results, according to the latest data from Refinitiv I/B/E/S. Earnings at companies listed on the pan-European STOXX 600 equity benchmark are expected to have risen 55% year-on-year in the last three months of 2021, a steep upward revision from last week’s forecast of a 51% rise. Refinitiv said 67.4% of companies which reported their results as of Monday had exceeded expectations, a figure well above the 52% beat of …