By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European stock markets ended mostly
higher on Monday, with the benchmark index extending gains into an
eighth straight day, as Akzo Nobel NV and Royal Philips NV rallied
after upbeat earnings reports.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index added 0.3% to close at 319.54,
building on a 0.8% gain from Friday.
Shares of Akzo Nobel (AKZOY) jumped 6.6% after the paints and
coatings firm said it returned to profit in the third quarter.
Royal Philips (PHG) climbed 5.3% after the electronics giant
said net profit more than doubled in the third quarter, mainly due
to lower operating costs.
On a more downbeat note, Hugo Boss AG dropped 2.1%, TOD'S SpA
lost 2.7% and Luxottica Group SpA fell 2.6% after Goldman Sachs cut
the three luxury-goods companies to sell from neutral.
Apart from earnings releases in Europe, investors looked to the
U.S. for data, where the National Association of Realtors said
sales of previously owned U.S. homes fell a seasonally adjusted
1.9% in September because of higher prices and rising mortgage
rates.
Later in the week a flurry of data releases from the U.S. are
due, after they were delayed by the government shutdown that ended
last week. On Tuesday, the much-anticipated nonfarm-payrolls report
from September will come out, along with the unemployment rate.
U.S. stock traded mostly lower on Wall Street on Monday.
"After all the political noise of the past month, this week
looks set to see macro and fundamental drivers come back with a
bang as we (finally) have September's nonfarm payrolls on Tuesday.
We also see more than a quarter of S&P 500 companies report
earnings, whilst European earnings season gathers pace," analysts
at Deutsche Bank said in a note.
"After last week's impressive rallies, it will be interesting to
see how markets manage this change of focus and the persistent data
flow. On top of this, each data point will be analyzed with an eye
not only to what they mean for underlying economic strength but
also for what each implies for the time schedule of [Federal
Reserve] tapering," they added.
Europe movers
In Europe, Germany's DAX 30 index closed marginally higher at
8,867.22, continuing its record run. France's CAC 40 index lost
0.2% to 4,276.92, while the U.K.'s FTSE 100 index rose 0.5% at
6,654.20.
Italy's FTSE MIB index ended slightly lower at 19,262.69, as the
country's three main trade unions said they will hold strikes and
protests against the government's 2014 budget plan.
Shares of Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS) slid 5.3% in
London after reports that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and
Bank of America Corp. (BAC) are close to agreeing to
multibillion-dollar settlements with the Federal Housing Finance
Agency over boom-era house loans. RBS was one of the biggest
sellers of mortgage-backed securities to housing agencies Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac before the financial crisis.
Additionally, Chancellor George Osborne told the Daily Telegraph
that the government could decide to split the bank within a matter
of weeks.
Other banks were also the decline, with shares of Deutsche Bank
AG (DB) down 1.5% and BNP Paribas SA 1% lower.
On a more upbeat note, shares of SAP AG climbed 4.8% in
Frankfurt after the business-software firm said profit jumped 23%
in the third quarter.
J Sainsbury PLC rose 0.6% to 3.97 pounds ($6.41), after Deutsche
Bank raised the price target on the supermarket chain to GBP4.25
pounds from GBP3.70.
Outside the major indexes, Swiss biotech firm Actelion Ltd.
gained 5.9% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration late Friday
approved its new key lung drug, Opsumit.
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