NEW! Investment Companies Centre

European close: Stocks end with gains

Related Companies

Related Indices

Related Sectors

News for Spread Betters

PreviousPrevious
NextNext

There's a new Investor Edition of CMC Markets' spread betting platform... and it's exclusive to DigitalLook.com users...

Get full details about Marketmaker:Investor Edition here. Advertisement

Date: Wednesday 20 Aug 2008

LONDON (ShareCast) - Big gains in the energy and mining sectors helped Europe’s leading exchanges close with good gains on Wednesday.

Commodity-related stocks were going well with Total, Shell and Eni among the risers. Oil prices hit $117 a barrel earlier today, but then tumbled below $114.

Tech shares were on the rise following better-than-expected results from Hewlett-Packard. The world's largest personal-computer maker's third-quarter net income increased 14% helped by strong demand for its notebooks in Europe and Asia.

A deal announced by STMicroelectronics and Ericsson also lifted sentiment. The Swedish telecom gear group and the Switzerland-based chip-maker today unveiled plans to combine their wireless chip and software businesses to form a joint venture with pro-forma sales of $3.6bn per year.

The new Geneva-based company, which will employ 8,000 people, combines Ericsson’s mobile platforms unit and ST-NXP Wireless. Its customers will include Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG and Sharp. Ericsson is to contribute $1.1bn to the joint venture, out of which $700m will be paid to STMicroelectronics.

Germany's largest maker of semiconductors Infineon Technologies was also in the blue.

In broker news, Commerzbank upgraded German mail group Deutsche Post to add from hold, saying the current slowdown in the economy is likely to only have a limited impact on the company.

Elsewhere, the Financial Times Deutschland reported that Deutsche Post is to make a decision on the sale of Deutsche Postbank by the beginning of October.

The German Dax closed 35 points higher at 6,317, the French CAC gained 33 points to 4,365, while the Swiss market fell 15 points to 7,100.

Euro zone construction output in June sank by 2.4% year-on-year, said the European Union's statistics office Eurostat.

Digital Look have been voted
"Best Research and Information Provider"

4th Floor, Bankside House, 107 Leadenhall Street, London EC3A 4AF.
Registered in England and Wales (registered no. 3678570).