European shares closed near six-month highs yesterday after US President George W. Bush won a second term in office, but automakers weighed after updates from Volkswagen and BMW.
"Clearly having a president anointed now rather than having 10 or 11 days of vote count and potentially legal actions makes a positive difference for the market," said strategist Rolf Elgeti at ABN AMRO.
Drug stocks were among the top gainers on expectations Bush is less likely to impose price cuts on medicines.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index of pan-European blue chips closed 0.3 per cent firmer at 1,019.1 points, having earlier hit a six-month peak of 1,022.9 points.
Turnover was hefty at around €2.9 billion.
The narrower DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index rose 0.2 per cent to 2,860.7 points.
"My view all along is that it didn't really matter too much for markets in the near-term which person got elected," said James Barty, chief European equity strategist at Deutsche Bank.
"The fact that we got through the US presidential election without any significant terrorism will itself be a relief to the market. The fact is, the US president has got pretty much the same problems (as before) to handle."
Deutsche Bank remained positive on European equities, provided oil prices fell.
"If, as we believe, the oil price does continue to come down, then we believe that markets can push further to the upside. I think to trigger a proper rally into the year-end, we probably need to see the oil price down to $40 barrel."
US light crude briefly fell as much as two per cent after weekly data showing a larger-than-expected increase in US crude supplies. Crude traded down about 0.2 per cent at $49.55 a barrel at 1719 GMT.
In New York, the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average was 1.2 per cent higher at 10,155.9 points, while the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1.2 per cent to 2,007.7 points.
Around Europe, London's FTSE 100 closed 0.5 per cent higher, while Paris's CAC-40 ended up 0.1 per cent. In Zurich, the SMI rose one per cent but Frankfurt's DAX closed flat.
Among drugmakers, AstraZeneca rose 2.8 per cent, GlaxoSmithKline added two per cent and Novartis ended up 1.6 per cent.
Sanofi-Aventis was the exception in the firmer sector, falling 2.7 per cent as fears about the patent on its blood-thinning drug Plavix and a Lehman Brother downgrade weighed.