By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European stocks rose Thursday, as gains
for the London Stock Exchange Group PLC set the market's benchmark
index on track for its first win in five sessions.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 0.2% to 342.50. The index on
Wednesday dropped 1.1%, the steepest decline since mid-April
according to FactSet data, as equities keyed off a slide in U.S.
equities.
Heading up advancers in Thursday's session was a 3.4% rise in
London Stock Exchange after the exchange operator said it's
acquiring U.S.-based asset manager Frank Russell Co. for $2.7
billion. LSE was the top gainer on the U.K.'s FTSE 100 index which
rose 0.2% to 6,747.42.
Fresenius Medical Care AG popped up 2.9%, after a ratings
upgrade at Credit Suisse to outperform from neutral on
Thursday.
But shares of Barclays PLC dropped 5%, after New York Attorney
General Eric Schneiderman launched a civil lawsuit against the bank
on Wednesday. The suit alleges Barclays dramatically increased the
market share of its dark pool through a series of false statements
to clients and investors about how, and for whose benefit, the bank
operates its dark pool.
Dark pools are private trading platforms that allow block trades
and are designed to let firms make anonymous trades without
disclosing their hands. In July 2012, the Bank of England pushed
out Barclays's then-chief executive Bob Diamond a month after the
lender was fined for rigging the Libor benchmark interest rate.
Among country indexes, France's CAC 40 index rose 0.2% to
4,470.57, and Germany's DAX 30 equity index gained 0.2% to
9,892.35.
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