A woman takes pictures with a Nokia Lumia 1020 in New York. Nokia shares climbed 7.26% yesterday after the Finnish telecom equipment group jumped back into profit in the second quarter, boosted by restructuring.
AFP/London
European stock markets rose yesterday and the euro recovered from an eight-month low as figures pointed to an uptick in growth in Europe and China.
Robust manufacturing data in China, the world’s second-largest economy, and a strong eurozone purchasing managers’ index (PMI) helped dampen concerns about EU sanctions against Russia.
Frankfurt’s main DAX index traded up 0.42% to 9,794.06 points, compared to Wednesday’s closing values.
London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index rose 0.34% to 6,821.46 points, while in Paris the CAC 40 finished the day up 0.78% at 4,410.65.
Madrid’s IBEX 35 index also surged to close up 1.89% after official data showed unemployment in Spain fell sharply in the second quarter — slipping beneath 25%.
HSBC, meanwhile, said its preliminary PMI of Chinese manufacturing activity for this month jumped to 52.0 from 50.7 in June. Anything above 50 indicates growth.
Wall Street rode the optimistic wave, with the S&P 500 topping its record close on Wednesday, helped as well by more good corporate earnings reports, especially from tech giant Facebook.
By early afternoon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had edged up 0.11% to 17,104.74, while the S&P 500 gained 0.19% to 1,990.72. The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.22% to 4,483.56.
In European equities, Nokia shares climbed 7.26% after the Finnish telecom equipment group jumped back into profit in the second quarter, boosted by restructuring.
In Paris, shares in energy engineering group Technip plunged 8.66% after it predicted profits at its onshore/offshore division would be hit by political risks at its Yamal gas project in the Russian Arctic.
Market research group Ipsos dived 21.57% to €21.76 after a profit warning due to setbacks in the Americas, in part because companies had delayed research because of the World Cup.
In Brussels, meanwhile, a European Union source said the bloc will add to its sanctions list 15 Ukrainian and Russian people and 18 entities over their role in the Ukraine crisis.
Yesterday, the European single currency hit a new eight-month low against the dollar at $1.3438. It later recovered to $1.3467, compared with $1.3462 late in New York on Wednesday.
The euro rose to 79.31 British pence from 78.99 on Wednesday. The pound dropped to $1.6979 from $1.7040.
The price of gold slid to $1,292.75 an ounce on the London Bullion Market from $1,308 on Wednesday.
In London, gains to banking shares and for miners helped to offset heavy falls to home improvements firm Kingfisher and no-frills airline EasyJet.
Kingfisher shed 8.18% to 308.50 pence after revealing poor trading figures for France, while Easyjet lost 4.99% to 1,333 pence as its forecast for higher annual profits came in below market expectations.
