European stocks closed higher on Monday, recovering well after two successive days of losses, led largely by gains in the banking space amid expectations of a series of rate hikes by central banks in the coming months.
Investors also digested the latest batch of corporate earnings updates and economic data from the region, and continued to follow news about tensions between the U.S. and Ukraine.
Investors also looked ahead to U.S. CPI data as well as the January Fed minutes, due this week.
The pan European Stoxx 600 climbed 0.76%. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 moved up 0.76%, Germany’s DAX surged up 0.71% and France’s CAC 40 gained 0.83%, while Switzerland’s SMI gained 0.44%.
Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Turkey closed higher
Greece ended notably lower. Czech Republic, Poland and Spain ended slightly weak, while Portugal and Russia ended flat.
In the U.K. market, Flutter Entertainment, IAG, Melrose Industries, Rio Tinto, Standard Chartered, Vodafone Group, Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC Holdings, Prudential, Entain and DCC gained 2 to 4%.
Rolls-Royce Holdings, Anglo American Plc, Persimmon, Royal Mail, Phoenix Group Holdings, Whitbread, Hargreaves Lansdown and Glencore also moved up sharply.
Meanwhile, Evraz tumbled nearly 7% and Smith & Nephew shed about 4%. B&M European Value Retail, Spirax-Sarco Engineering, Sainsburry (J), Land Securities, Tesco, Ashtead Group and Severn Trent ended lower by 1.3 to 2.4%.
In the German market, HelloFresh surged up nearly 6%. SAP, Henkel, Continental and Brenntag gained 1.6 to 2%. Qiagen gained a little over 1%.
Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Wohnen, Linde, Siemens Healthineers, Deutsche Telekom and Sartorius ended weak.
In Paris, ArcelorMittal rallied nearly 5%, buoyed by reports that the company is among the ones looking to acquire Spring Energy.
Shares of French car parts supplier Faurecia gained more than 3% after the company said its new combination with Hella would result in it aiming for sales of above 33 billion euros ($37.72 billion) in 2025.
Sanofi gained more than 3% after the US FDA approved Enjaymo, the first and only approved treatment for people with cold agglutinin disease.
WorldLine, BNP Paribas, AXA, Essilor, Safran, Danone and Valeo gained 1.3 to 3.5%.
Publicis Groupe, Hermes International, Unibail Rodamco, Societe Generale and Air Liquide lost 1 to 2%.
In economic releases, investors shrugged off data showing that German industrial production declined unexpectedly in December.
Industrial output dropped 0.3% month-on-month, in contrast to the 0.3% rise in November, Destatis reported. This was the first fall in three months. Economists had forecast a monthly growth of 0.4%.
On a yearly basis, industrial production decreased 4.1%, following a 2.2% drop in the previous month.
Separate data published by the Sentix research group showed that Eurozone’s investor sentiment index rose to 16.6 in February from 14.9 in January, extending its upbeat momentum for the second month of 2022.
UK house prices annual rate of increase remained steady at the start of the year, while the monthly gain was the weakest in seven months, survey data from the Lloyds Bank subsidiary Halifax showed.
The house price index rose 9.7% year-on-year, same as in December. Compared to the previous month, house prices rose 0.3%.
Switzerland’s unemployment rate dropped in January, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, or SECO, said on Monday.
The unemployment rate fell to a seasonally adjusted 2.3% in January from 2.4% in December. The rate was forecast to remain unchanged at 2.4%.
On an unadjusted basis, the jobless rate held steady at 2.6%, while economists’ had forecast the rate to rise slightly to 2.7%.
European Stocks Close On Firm Note
2022-02-07 17:52:11
