Italian Banks Raise Europe

Ivaylo
16 Oct, 2006
New York City

Oil explorers, technology firms and Italian banks gained in early European market trading on Monday, although sentiment on the Continent was put off by disappointing earnings from Dutch consumer electronics giant Philips Electronics. By mid morning, the FTSE 100 in London climbed 0.2%, Frankfurt Xetra Dax was flat, and the CAC 40 in Paris was also little changed.

[R]6:30AM European markets rise on Monday on oil, technology and bank stocks.[/R]
European markets were marginally higher on Monday. By mid morning, the FTSE 100 in London climbed 0.2% to 6,169.1, Frankfurt Xetra Dax was flat at 6,174.84, and the CAC 40 in Paris was little changed at 5,351.5.

Advancers

Banca Popolare Italiana surged 5.7% after accepting a takeover bid from rival Banca Popolare di Verona e Novara in a share swap worth over 8 billion euros. BPVN will offer 0.43% of its shares for each BPI share, while BPI shareholders will also obtain an extraordinary dividend of around 2 euros a share.

Oil shares also gained ahead of OPEC meeting later this week. Norsk Hydro gained 3.5%, while Statoil rose 3.1% and Neste Oil climbed 1.6%.

Scania, the Swedish target of MAN of Germany announced it could pay an extra dividend a share this year in a move to defend itself. Scania A shares, which carry the voting rights, added 1.6%.

Decliners

Philips, the Dutch electronics group, fell 1.1% after missing forecasts with its third-quarter core profit and shares in BPVN fell 4.6%. Shares of MAN, bidding fro Scania, fell 1.8%. Hennes & Mauritz, the Swedish clothing retailer, lost 1% after it said that same-store sales did not make any progress at all in September. Total sales, excluding currency rate changes, rose 9%, the company said.

Oil and gold

Crude oil advanced for a third day on speculation that OPEC members will formally agree at a meeting this week to cut production to counter a 21% decline in prices over the past three months. Crude oil for November delivery gained 69 cents, or 1.2%, to $59.26 a barrel in after-hours trading on the NYME.

It traded at $59.19 at 10:22 a.m. London time. Brent crude oil for November settlement advanced 56 cents to $60.08 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures exchange.

Gold opened Monday at a bid price of $591.50 a troy ounce, up from $586.70 late Friday.

Currencies

The euro was lower against the U.S. dollar on Monday, at the beginning of a week that will see the release of closely watched U.S. inflation data. The euro bought $1.2493 in morning European trading, down from $1.2514 in New York late Friday. The British pound bought $1.8569, barely changed from its Friday level of $1.8568. The dollar slipped to 119.36 Japanese yen from 119.63 yen.

[R]5:00 AM Gold and silver futures hit highest level in more than a week.[/R]
December gold went $12.40 higher to close at $592.70 a troy ounce on the NYME, while December silver climbed 30 cents to $11.68. January platinum rose $8.70 to $1,083.30 an ounce and December palladium advanced $8.05 to $315.95. The most-active December copper contract settled 2.7 cents higher at $3.4135 per pound.

November crude oil moved higher 71 cents to finish at $58.57 a barrel. November heating oil settled up 3.01 cents at $1.7178 a gallon. November gasoline rose 1.75 cents to end at $1.4684 a gallon. October natural gas settled down 12.3 cents at $5.659 a million British thermal units.

On the New York Board of Trade, December Arabica coffee futures closed up 0.75 cent at $1.0405 a pound. March futures on raw sugar in foreign ports settled unchanged at 11.13 cents a pound, with May futures up 0.2 cent at 11.32 cents.