AMSTERDAM/LONDON: European stocks closed at a record high on Thursday as a rally in commodity prices lifted mining stocks and a slate of upbeat earnings reports offset worries about the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.5% in its third session of gains, with miners jumping 1.5%.
Travel & leisure stocks closed up 0.1% after hitting a record high earlier in the session.
The UK’s commodity-heavy FTSE 100 rose 0.6% to its highest level since February 2020 as a surge in metals prices lifted shares of companies such as Rio Tinto, Anglo American and BHP.
Analysts expect earnings at STOXX 600 firms to rebound more than 50% in the first quarter following a slide of nearly 40% in the same quarter a year earlier, according to Refinitiv I/B/E/S data.
On Thursday, Swiss engineering company ABB rose 3.1% after raising its full-year sales outlook, while French advertising group Publicis gained 3.3% as it returned to organic growth for the first time since before the pandemic.
Shares in Publicis’ British rival WPP rose 0.5%.
German real estate companies Deutsche Wohnen, LEG Immobilien and TAG Immobilien rose between 0.9% and 2.5% after the Constitutional Court ruled that a law putting a rent cap on apartments in Berlin was invalid.
Britain’s food delivery company Deliveroo slipped 3.8% even as its quarterly orders more than doubled in its first trading update since its underwhelming market debut last month.
Norwegian lender Sbanken soared 30.3% after the country’s largest bank DNB agreed to buy the smaller competitor in a deal worth 11.1 billion Norwegian crowns ($1.3 billion).
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