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Europe looks to Wall St. for gains
LONDON, England (CNN) -- European stocks markets rose Monday afternoon, reversing earlier losses, on hopes Wall Street would open higher. London's FTSE 100 was rose 0.6 percent to 3,894.2 and Frankfurt's electronically traded Xetra Dax climbed 1.25 percent to 2,874.26, while the CAC 40 blue chip index in Paris added 1 percent to 2,896.91. The pan-European FTSE Eurotop 300, a broader index of the region's largest stocks, was up 0.9 percent. Bourses are trading close to three months highs as corporate earnings in the U.S. and Europe have broadly met expectations. "The first-quarter earnings season has so far been the best since the second quarter in 2000.... Cost-cutting trends are ahead of expectations, corporate-spend-related areas (are) showing strength and, as yet, not a mention of the (negative impact of a weak) dollar as we would have expected,'' Andrew Garthwaite, a strategist at CSFB investment bank, told Reuters. "The strongest positive surprises have been in the following sectors: autos, media, transport and drugs,'' he added. In corporate news, German insurer Allianz (FALZ) rose 4.4 percent to 58.66 after Reuters reported it is set to find takers for about 98 percent of its 4.4 billion euro emergency cash call. Cash-starved French heavy engineering firm Alstom (PALS) rose 3.7 percent after announcing it had agreed to sell its industrial turbines businesses to German peer Siemens (FSIE) for 1.1 billion euros. (Full story) Britain's biggest brewer Scottish & Newcastle (SCTN) rose 5.6 percent to 361 pence after its said it would sell its pub business for more than £2 billion ($3.2 billion). (Full story) But Dutch bank ABN AMRO fell 2.8 percent to 15.40 euros as it delivered a net profit that beat expectations but said it could not offer an outlook for 2003 because of the gloom over the global economy. The AEX index in Amsterdam and Milan's MIB30 index rose 0.9 percent each, while the SMI in Zurich climbed 1.1 percent. In the U.S. on Friday, stocks sank as investors were unable to shake off the effects of a disappointing report on gross domestic product for the first quarter. The Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq composite each fell 1.6 percent, while the S&P 500 index logged losses of 1.4 percent. Wall Street was expected to open higher later on Monday.
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