European shares rose on Friday, adding to the strong gains earlier this week, as investors focused on Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations and digested the talks between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
The pan-European STOXX 600 closed 0.9 percent higher, with technology stocks leading the gains.
The benchmark index posted its best weekly performance since November 2020 on optimism that peace would be negotiated in the Ukraine conflict that has rattled global markets.
“It’s been a weird week, because although we still got everything going on in Ukraine, we’ve also been sort of pulled back to the normal hustle and bustle, and investors do like normality,” AJ Bell financial analyst Danni Hewson said.
Biden and Xi spoke on a video call on Friday about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Chinese media said Xi underlined that such conflicts are in no-one’s interests.
Aiding sentiment, Russia paid US$117 million in interest due on two sovereign US-dollar bonds, easing doubts about its ability to honor external debt after harsh sanctions imposed by the West.
“In European markets, we’re very close to the levels we’re at before the war. We’re very far from pricing a negative scenario here,” Unigestion SA head of portfolio management Alexandre Deruaz said.
“The impact on the growth cycle is coming from oil. We’ve passed the point of maximum price in the short term for oil. So everybody is recognizing that inflation is going through the roof, but at some point it will have a lesser impact,” he said.
The UK’s Vodafone Group PLC rose 1.3 percent after Reuters reported that global infrastructure funds have approached the telecom giant to invest in its US$16 billion mast company Vantage Towers. The latter’s stock gained 10.8 percent.
German real-estate giant Vonovia SE slipped 3.3 percent even as it said it was on course for “significant growth” after a record year and the acquisition of smaller rival Deutsche Wohnen last year.
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