European stocks posted the biggest weekly gain since July after US service industries expanded for the first time in a year and basic-resource shares rallied on an unexpected profit from Alcoa Inc and higher metal prices.
BHP Billiton Ltd, the world’s largest mining company, and Kazakhmys PLC jumped more than 8 percent. Valeo SA, France’s second-biggest auto-parts supplier, surged 19 percent after CA Cheuvreux recommended the shares. Deutsche Bank AG and Barclays PLC climbed more than 5 percent as European banks were raised to “overweight” at BOFA Merrill Lynch Global Research.
Europe’s Dow Jones STOXX 600 Index added 3.7 percent to 242.73, as all 19 industry groups advanced. The measure has rebounded 54 percent since March 9 as companies worldwide from Goldman Sachs Group Inc to Bayer AG and L’Oreal SA reported better-than-projected earnings and the French and German economies exited recessions.
The Bank of England (BOE) and the European Central Bank (ECB) kept their benchmark interest rates at record lows on Thursday, one year after the Federal Reserve, ECB, BOE and central banks in Canada, Sweden and Switzerland made unprecedented coordinated rate cuts aimed at easing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
The Institute for Supply Management’s index of non-manufacturing businesses, which make up almost 90 percent of the US economy, rose to 50.9 last month, higher than forecast, from 48.4 in August, according to the group. Fifty is the dividing line between expansion and contraction.
National benchmark indexes increased in all 18 western European markets. The UK’s FTSE 100 advanced 3.5 percent, while Germany’s DAX climbed 4.5 percent and France’s CAC 40 rallied 4.1 percent.
RSS