Europe stocks end higher; Nasdaq resumes trading

Two women hold umbrellas as they walk past the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York’s Times Square yesterday. The Nasdaq OMX Group has resolved the technical issues that led to Thursday’s trading halt, but cannot guarantee there would be no future problems, chief executive Officer Robert Greifeld said yesterday.

AFP, Reuters/London/New YorkEuropean stock markets ended moderately higher yesterday, but sentiment remained fragile at the end of a particularly turbulent week for emerging market currencies. London’s FTSE 100 index of leading companies closed up 0.70% to 6,492.1, after data showed the British economy grew 0.7% in the second quarter, up from the prior estimate of 0.6%. Frankfurt’s Dax 30 added 0.23% to 8,416.99 points, while the Cac 40 in Paris rose 0.25% to 4,069.47 points. In foreign exchange activity — a main focus this week — the euro rallied to $1.3398 from $1.3354 late in New York on Thursday. The dollar steadied to ¥98.60 compared with ¥98.68 late Thursday. Sterling weakened against the euro, with one pound buying €1.1631 from 1.1671 on Thursday, and retreated against the dollar, to $1.5584 from $1.5588 a day earlier.The Russian ruble gained some ground heading into the evening, with one dollar costing 32.9918 rubles from 33.0424 rubles, while the Turkish lira followed suit, with one dollar costing 1.9914 lira from 1.9936 lira in late trading on Thursday.On the sovereign bonds market, yields were mixed. The rate of return for investors on Britain’s 10-year government bond fell to 2.70% and 10-year US bonds slid to 2.82%. The yield on Germany’s 10-year bonds were more or less flat at 1.92%.US stocks inched higher yesterday as trading resumed without interruption a day after the Nasdaq stock exchange suffered an unprecedented, three-hour trading halt.Nasdaq OMX Group has resolved the technical issues that led to Thursday’s trading halt, but cannot guarantee there would be no future problems, chief executive Officer Robert Greifeld said on CNBC television yesterday.Even with the Nasdaq outage on Thursday, the S&P 500 managed to register its biggest percentage gain since August 1, but was unable to close above its 50-day moving average for a fifth straight session. The mark, now at 1,659.34, has become a technical hurdle.At around midday yesterday the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.10% and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.25%.Wall Street was also jolted by Microsoft’s announcement that chief executive Steve Ballmer will retire within the next 12 months.Microsoft rose 5.9%, giving the Nasdaq composite index its biggest lift.“We’ve got the 50-day (average) right there. We are all kind of still catching our breath after yesterday’s flash freeze,” said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research in Cincinnati, Ohio.“The Microsoft news got everybody a little excited and caused some volume in tech, but that is only the main headline news today.”