European shares rose yesterday, with key indexes breaking above the past week’s trading range, boosted by a crop of upbeat corporate reports and easing concerns about the eurozone debt crisis.
We are trying to make up what we lost last week
Brewer Heineken and French vouchers and pre-paid cards group Edenred were among the top gainers after reporting 2012 results that were buoyed by their exposure to fast-growing emerging markets.
Sentiment on Europe improved too, thanks to strong demand at an Italian bond auction – despite uncertainty surrounding next week’s elections there – and eurozone factory output data that confirmed a slow recovery.
“You are seeing some slight economic optimism coming in, and that’s why the market is going up. We are trying to make up what we lost last week,” said Oliver Roth, head trader at Close Brothers Seydler.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 closed up 0.4 per cent at 1,165.61 points, its highest finish since a steep sell-off on February 4 on concerns over the Italian election and a Spanish corruption scandal.
“Clearly the market is in a good momentum. From a technical point of view the market still looks very strong,” said Steen Jakobsen, chief economist and CIO at Saxo Bank.
Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.3 per cent, with the gains accelerating after it broke through January’s peak to set five-year highs.
Germany’s DAX was another strong performer, adding 0.7 per cent to close above technical resistance of 7,700 points.
“It means we have a real good chance to test 7,800 now... but we need much more than a bit of economic optimism to go towards 8,000 so we need really strong figures, that the optimism is based on real fact,” said Roth at Close Brothers.
By sector, miners were among the top performers, also benefiting from higher copper prices.
However, banks, which also tend to do well at times of improved risk appetite, lagged the market, dragged down by news of a bigger than expected fourth-quarter loss at Societe Generale.
With around two-thirds of European banks yet to report earnings, the news soured sentiment on the sector as a whole.
Of the STOXX 600 companies that have already reported 2012 earnings, around 40 per cent have missed expectations compared to 29 per cent of their US peers in S&P 500, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data.
As highlighted by yesterday’s crop of earnings, focusing on foreign markets generally pays off better, even if the domestic economy is starting to show shoots of recovery.
“The general message is that economic growth in Europe will continue to be weak for the foreseeable future, so investors are likely to be better off looking for growth outside of Europe,” said Nick Nelson, strategist at UBS.
“Our preferred area is the United States... the valuation of some of the US-exposed stocks look slightly more attractive than some of the emerging market-exposed stocks, where investors have been hiding for the last few years.”