General Industry

Air France Surge on Earnings Leads Europe Stocks to 2-Week High

By Publications Checkout
Air France Surge on Earnings Leads Europe Stocks to 2-Week High

Better-than-estimated earnings from companies including Air France-KLM Group pushed European stocks higher for a second day, even as commodity producers declined.

Air France-KLM jumped the most since 2014, leading gains on the Stoxx Europe 600 Index. Centrica Plc, Accor SA and Genmab A/S gained more than 3.5 per cent as their results also topped projections. Deutsche Boerse AG added 5.3 per cent after saying 2015 net revenue increased to the highest since the financial crisis.

“It’s been a rough ride so we need some relief,” said Christian Gattiker, head of research at Julius Baer in Zurich. “We won’t see 2 percentage points increase every day. We look for some recovery for the next few weeks but the jury is still out. We don’t buy the junk and what’s been bashed most. It’s premature to buy back into bank stocks.”

A gauge of euro-area stock volatility fell for a fifth day, its longest streak of declines since October. The region’s stocks have turned cheaper after this year’s rout. Stoxx 600 firms trade at 14.6 times estimated earnings, down from almost 17 in April.

Miners fell, following an 8.1 per cent rally yesterday that helped them enter a bull market and erase losses for the year. Anglo American Plc and Rio Tinto Group led commodity producers to the worst performance among Stoxx 600 industries.

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Following investor worry over the pace of economic expansion around the world, the OECD today cut its global growth forecasts, noting a slowdown in Brazil, Germany and the US and warning that some emerging markets are at risk of exchange-rate volatility.

News by Bloomberg, edited by Hospitality Ireland