LONDON (ShareCast) - Banks are still leading the way in Europe ahead of quarterly earnings from US investment bank Goldman Sachs due later today.

News from fellow US bank Lehman Brothers lifted financial shares across Europe yesterday as the group reported in-line results.

In Paris, Societe Generale and BNP Paribas are among the top blue chip risers, while UBS is going well in Switzerland.

Societe Generale said this morning that it has bought a 37% stake in Rockefeller Financial Services for an undisclosed sum.

Miners, meanwhile, are ahead on higher copper prices.

Alcatel-Lucent gained after it agreed a $1bn deal to supply wireless network and 3G equipment to China Mobile Group.

Auto shares are on the rise on news that Germany’s Daimler is to buy back as much as 10% of its shares. The Stuttgart-based group said it will spend up to €6bn by April 2009.

Syngenta is one of Switzerland’s biggest gainers after Merrill Lynch upped the group’s price target to 355 Swiss francs form 345 Swiss francs.

The German Dax is up 88 points to 6,818, the French CAC is 41 points better at 4,699, while the Swiss market gained 55 points to 7,294.

In economic news, Germany’s ZEW economic expectations index dropped to -52.4 in June from -41.4 the previous month, the lowest level in almost 16 years.

Elsewhere, the euro zone’s provisional unadjusted trade surplus swung to a trade surplus of €2.3bn in April compared with a revised deficit of €1.5bn in March, according to EU statistics office Eurostat.

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