European shares mark best week in seven months



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European shares mark best week in seven months

On Friday, a basket of European stock indices had closed out the session with lofty gains as major European bourses had logged their best weekly percentage gains in more than seven months, mostly boosted up by a brighter-than-anticipated beginning of third quarter earnings’ season that seemingly had overshadowed investors’ concerns about a lingering inflation-surge.

With bank stocks leading the tally of gains in line with Wall Street where all major lenders had topped estimates in the first week of a tentative Q3, 2021 earnings’ season, regional pan-European STOXX 600 gained 0.7 per cent, hitting a fresh one-month high and shelving a weekly percentage gain of 2.6 per cent, as a sharp shoot-up in risk appetites helped ease concerns about a strong build-up in price pressures.

Besides, major European banks had wrapped up the weeks at their pre-pandemic levels after recovering from pandemic-associated rumpus, mirroring large US lenders which had soared to record highs in recent past. Apart from that, a sky-scrapping oil and natgas prices continued to surge energy stocks, while a US President Joe Biden’s remark that the United States would be open to international travel by November 9, helped travel stocks regain some of their upward momentums.

Meanwhile, as retailers, travel and entertainment alongside oil and gas sub-sectors rose between 1.6 per cent and 2.0 per cent, a senior market analyst Ian Williams said, “A renewed focus on the bottom-up news has helped global equities over the last couple of sessions, and results from the U.S.

banking sector delivered another significant boost to indices overnight. ”

European shares post best week in seven months

Citing statistics, in the day’s European market round-off, London’s blue-chip FTSE 100 gained 0.37 per cent to 7,234.03 and French CAC 40 rose 0.63 per cent to 6,727.52, while Frankfurt’s DAX soared 0.81 per cent to 15,587.36.

Elsewhere in the Europe, Italy’s FTSE MIB climbed 0.81 per cent to 26,489.18, while Madrid’s benchmark IBEX 35 added 0.81 per cent to wrap up the day at 8,997.00. On the week, London’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.95 per cent, French CAC 40 shot up 2.55 per cent and Frankfurt’s DAX leapt 2.51 per cent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 1.68 per cent and Madrid’s IBEX 35 added 0.47 per cent.

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