MW : Oil producers, miners lead gains for European shares
The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 229.68, +3.23, +1.43%) rose 1.2% to 229.09, with the move helping the index to show a weekly gain of 0.2%.
Companies correlated to commodity prices were among the best performers, with oil giant Total (FR:FP 38.56, +0.73, +1.93%) (TOT 54.17, +0.52, +0.97%) up 1.7% in Paris.
Oil futures headed towards $74 a barrel in electronic trading, with the front month light sweet crude oil contract up 3 cents at $73.85.
The contract soared $3.23, or 4.7%, on the New York Mercantile Exchange Thursday, on an unexpected drop in inventories. Read more on crude.
Metal futures were higher, with contracts on copper, silver, and platinum all advancing.
Results were also on the agenda in the mining sector, with Rio Tinto (UK:RIO 2,345, +37.00, +1.60%) (RTP 154.98, +1.88, +1.23%) shares up 1.5%.
The firm's first-half net earnings fell 65% to $2.45 billion in the first half of 2008, just below analyst forecasts. Still, Rio Tinto's chairman Jan du Plessis said the company reduced its debt by $14.8 billion during the period and that the miner remains "cautious about the recent rally in [commodity] prices" but expects that "development in emerging markets will generate underlying strength in metals and minerals demand over the long term. See full story.
On a regional basis, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 4,739, +49.40, +1.05%) climbed 0.9% to 4,732.92, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,309, +76.57, +1.46%) advanced 1.2% to 5,292.73 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,502, +52.11, +1.51%) rose 1.2% to 3,493.06.
China's Shanghai Composite index ended with a 4.5% gain on Thursday, boosted by strong gains for oil firms. Energy companies also helped U.S. stocks to finish higher on Wednesday.
U.S. stock futures were pointing to another day of gains on Wall Street, with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures up 41 points.
Gains were seen in other sectors in Europe as well, with shares of Dutch supermarket operator Ahold (NL:AH 8.51, +0.35, +4.25%) up 4.2%.
The firm's second-quarter net income fell 42.3% to 195 million euros but beat analyst expectations after it posted higher sales at its Stop & Shop and Giant-Landover stores in the U.S. Net sales rose 11.5% to 6.4 billion euros.
Swiss cement maker Holcim (CH:HOLN 65.45, +0.35, +0.54%) climbed 4.8%. It also posted a second-quarter profit drop that beat analyst expectations. Net profit fell 35% to 453 million Swiss francs.
