By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Shares in Europe advanced for the second straight session on Tuesday, helped by further gains for oil and gas producers.
The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 251.33, +1.76, +0.71%) rose 0.7% to 251.23. On Monday the index jumped 1.6% in its biggest one-day rise since the start of December, helped by gains for oil and gas companies.
The sector advanced again on Tuesday, with Royal Dutch Shell (UK:RDSA 1,882, +47.50, +2.59%) (RDS.A 59.24, +1.17, +2.01%) shares up 2.7% and Total (FR:FP 44.78, +0.93, +2.12%) (TOT 63.89, +1.30, +2.08%) shares up 2%.
Cairn Energy (UK:CNE 332.80, -2,856, -89.57%) jumped another 5.4%. The firm gained sharply on Monday when it announced plans to drill offshore Greenland. Read more on Cairn.
Crude-oil futures eased back from early gains in electronic trading but stayed over $73 a barrel. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on Tuesday left production quotas unchanged as widely expected, according to reports. See full story.
On a regional level, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 5,349, +54.78, +1.04%) rose 1.1% to 5,352.26, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,949, +18.76, +0.32%) climbed 0.4% to 5,953.58 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,897, +25.24, +0.65%) advanced 0.7% to 3,898.24.
U.S. stock futures were pointing to another day of gains on Wall Street and Asian shares were higher, helped by gains for the technology sector. See Asia Markets.
European technology rose on Tuesday, with mobile handset maker Nokia (FI:NOK1V 8.66, -0.04, -0.46%) shares up 1.6% and Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicroelectronics (FR:STM 6.15, +0.11, +1.80%) up 1.5%.
Greek banks were also higher, with National Bank of Greece (NBG 4.87, 0.00, 0.00%) shares up 5.4%.
Moody's downgraded Greece's credit rating to A2 from A1 on Tuesday but said that the rating of Greece's country ceilings for bonds and bank deposits remains at Aaa.
"Moody's believes that Greece is extremely unlikely to face short-term liquidity/refinancing problems unless the European Central Bank decides to take the unusual step of making the sovereign debt of a member state ineligible as collateral for bank repurchase operations -- a risk that we consider very remote," said Arnaud Mares, a senior vice president at Moody's. Read more on Moody's downgrade.
The euro advanced against the dollar, up 0.2% at $1.4295. Read more on currencies.
Elsewhere in the banking sector, Bank of Ireland (IE:BIR 1.37, +0.16, +12.76%) and Allied Irish Banks (IE:AIB 1.17, +0.13, +12.95%) were each up more than 11% and Julius Baer (CH:BAER 34.12, +0.77, +2.31%) shares rose 4.3% after the Swiss lender was started at buy at Goldman Sachs.
In Amsterdam, shares of Dutch sports-car manufacturer Spyker (NL:SPYKR 2.20, +0.15, +7.32%) rose 6.8% after it said it will give General Motors Co. (MTLQQ 0.51, -0.03, -5.41%) more time to decide on its latest offer to buy Saab.
The company on Sunday had extended its deadline offer to 5 p.m. Eastern time on Monday. See full story.
Other auto makers performing well included Renault (FR:RNO 35.63, +0.93, +2.67%) , up 3%, and BMW (DE:BWM 86.00, 0.00, 0.00%) , up 0.8%.
Shares of Sky Deutschland (DE:SKYD 2.21, +0.13, +6.25%) rose 4.3%. The satellite-television firm said late Monday that its major shareholder News Corp., will increase its stake in the firm to 45.4% from 39.96%, raising between 110 million euros and 120 million euros for the firm.
The firm also narrowed its guidance for an adjusted operating loss of between 255 million euros and 265 million euros in 2009. It was previously looking for an EBITDA loss of between 250 million euros and 270 million euros.
News Corp. also owns MarketWatch, the publisher of this report.
