LONDON: European shares were set to gain on Monday, with strong earnings from some US companies such as IBM and Intel improving sentiment and investors hoping that Greece and its private creditors might ultimately agree on a deal.
Euro zone finance ministers will decide on Monday what terms of a Greek debt restructuring they are ready to accept as part of a second bailout package for Athens after negotiators for private creditors said they could not improve their offer.
After several rounds of talks, Greece and its private creditors are converging on a deal in which private bond-holders would take a real loss of 65 to 70 percent on their Greek bonds, officials close to the negotiations said.
Financial spread betters expected Britain's FTSE 100 to open 18 to 20 points higher, or as much as 0.4 percent, Germany's DAX to rise 7 to 15 points, or as much as 0.2 percent, and France's CAC-40 to gain 5 to 7 points, or as much as 0.2 percent.
Traders said recent encouraging macroeconomic numbers had also been prompting investors to buy equities.
"Momentum has certainly been towards the upside in equities of late, assisted in part by an improving US economy and liquidity measures put in place by the ECB (European Central Bank)," Chris Weston, institutional trader at IG Markets, said.
"One may therefore expect to see dips being used by traders to accumulate, however we have a big week of event risk. We look forward to the FOMC meeting, in which the Fed will announce details on its new communications strategy."
After its first policy meeting of 2012 this week, the US Federal Reserve will publish policymakers' individual forecasts for the path of overnight rates, including their views on when the first rate hike will come.
Copyright Reuters, 2012
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