By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European stock markets posted
broad-based gains on Thursday, with the trading mood lifted after
stellar earnings from U.S. tech giants Apple and Facebook and
upbeat German confidence data. European Central Bank President
Mario Draghi will be in the spotlight later in the morning, when he
speaks in Amsterdam.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index climbed 0.6% to 337.00, recovering
from a 0.6% loss on Wednesday. On the week, the benchmark was
looking at a 1.4% gain.
Helping lift the index, shares of Alstom SA rallied 11% after
reports that General Electric Co. (GE)is looking to buy the French
industrial company. Ishaq Siddiqi, market strategist at ETX
Capital, said in a note such a takeover would be the biggest in
GE's history and that it would make "complete strategic sense".
"GE is basically in every one of Alstom's businesses plus more,"
he said. "If GE manages to charm Alstom into its arms, the deal
would be worth 5% of the U.S. giant's market cap--expect GE shares
to jump at the Wall Street open later."
A representative from Alstom said in a statement that the
company is unaware of any potential offer and that the group will
use its annual report on May 7 as an "opportunity to give an update
on the prospects of its activities."
More broadly, investors were encouraged by an upbeat trading
mood in U.S. premarket action on the back of better-than-expected
earnings reports from Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Facebook Inc. (FB).
Stock futures for the three U.S. benchmarks were all up in early
premarket trade, with Nasdaq 100 index futures (NDM4) up 1.2%.
The European benchmarks also held on to gains after the German
Ifo business climate index rose to 111.2 points in April, up from
110.7 in March and beating expectations of a small decline.
At 10 a.m. London time, ECB President Mario Draghi will give a
keynote speech at the conference "De Nederlandsche Bank 200 years:
central banking in the next two decades."
Germany's DAX 30 index gained 0.8% to 9,623.77, while France's
CAC 40 index added 0.8% to 4,485.01. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 index
advanced 0.5%.
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