The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 236.63, +1.78, +0.76%) rose 0.6% to 236.35, a level not seen since early October, building on gains of nearly 3% made last week. Ad van Tiggelen, senior strategist at ING Investment Management, said that he expects gains to continue in the very short term as markets wait to see how the economy develops. "Before you see evidence of that, investors will still be able to play the recovery game as interest rates are low and in light of dividend yields in equity," he said. Comments from central bankers over the weekend fed into hopes that interest rates will stay low, at least for a while. See full story. "At their annual gathering in Jackson Hole, most stressed that they would not be rushing to withdraw policy stimulus," said economics at Royal Bank of Scotland. At the regional level, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 4,887, +36.49, +0.75%) rose 0.6% to 4,882.64, the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,649, +33.48, +0.93%) advanced 0.8% to 3,646.12 and the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,513, +49.79, +0.91%) climbed 0.8% to 5,507.09. Asia markets traded higher to start the week, while U.S. stocks also opened higher. See Asia Markets.

Source