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Nokia leads Europe higher
LONDON, England (CNN) -- European markets ended higher Thursday after a shortened week, with stocks buoyed by strong earnings from mobile phone giant Nokia. London's FTSE 100 rose 0.9 percent to 3,889.2 and the CAC 40 blue chip index in Paris inched up 0.1 percent to 2,898.61, while Frankfurt's electronically traded Xetra Dax gained 2.7 percent to 2,899.78. The pan-European FTSE Eurotop 300, a broader index of the region's largest stocks, was up 0.8 percent in light trading ahead of the Easter holidays on Friday and Monday. All European and U.S. markets were closed Friday. With military action in Iraq winding down, investors turned their attention to company profits. "Corporate earnings are quite good, but due more or less to cost-cutting measures and cleaning up balance sheets, so one has to ask if this is sustainable throughout the year," Edwin Slaghekke, a European fund manager at Theodoor Gilissen Bankiers in the Netherlands. Among the high-profile European companies posting results Thursday was Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone maker. Its stock rose 8.1 percent to 14.88 euros after saying profit rose 13 percent in the first three months of the year. (Full story) "Nokia's handset profitability is better than expected, which is why the group's EPS (earnings per share) has come in at the top end of estimates," Richard Winsor, a telecom analysts at Nomura, told Reuters. Germany's SAP (FSAP) rose 5.4 percent to 94.10 euros in late Frankfurt trading after Europe's biggest software company said it was winning more customers from its U.S. rivals. (Full story) News and financial data provider Reuters (RTR) fell 1.9 percent to 117.61 pence after its Chief Executive Tom Glocer told shareholders he expected the financial markets to remain weak for the rest of 2003. Its stock has fallen 80 percent over the past year. The AEX index in Amsterdam slipped 0.1 percent and the SMI in Zurich declined 0.7 percent, while Milan's MIB30 index rose 1.2 percent. In the U.S. on Thursday, stocks wavered near breakeven in late morning trading as investors were torn between both positive and negative earnings reports, as well as a weaker-than-expected weekly jobless claims numbers. (Full report) At 1530 GMT, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 3.15 points to 8,254.46 and the Nasdaq composite was up 13.10 points to 1407.82, while the S&P 500 index added 4.52 points to 884.43.
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