MW: European shares gain as investors hope for Greece rescue
Rio Tinto, Credit Suisse gain after earnings; Alcatel-Lucent, Renault drop
By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Earnings from Rio Tinto, Credit Suisse and Danone helped shares gain ground in Europe on Thursday ahead of a meeting that could announce help for debt-laden Greece.
After rising for the past three sessions, the pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 242.20, +1.29, +0.54%) climbed another 0.5% to 242.12 on Thursday.
This week's gains have been made as investors hope that a plan to help Greece will be announced by European leaders today.
Early Thursday, Reuters reported -- citing an E.U. government source -- that the leaders would take "determined and coordinated" action to aid Greece.
"Resolutions at European Union meetings (like the one today in Brussels) can favor a 'relief rally' on the equity market," said Tammo Greetfeld, strategist at UniCredit.
The Greek ASE Composite index climbed 0.4% to 1,949.40.
Of major European regional equity markets, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 5,182, +49.82, +0.97%) rose 1% to 5,183.91, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,549, +13.03, +0.24%) advanced 0.6% to 5,566.86 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,656, +20.19, +0.56%) rose 0.8% to 3,665.24.
Most Asian markets were higher, while U.S. stock futures were also pointing to a higher open on Wall Street, with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures up 59 points.
In the currency markets, the euro advanced 0.3% to $1.3775 against the dollar, while metal and oil futures were also slightly higher.
Of companies reporting earnings, Rio Tinto (UK:RIO 3,266, +125.50, +3.10%) (RTP 199.20, -1.08, -0.54%) shares were up 3.5% in the mining sector after the mining giant reported a 33% rise in its fiscal year profit to $4.87 billion on the heels of record iron-ore sales and a big increase in copper and gold production.
Shares of Swiss bank Credit Suisse (CH:CSGN 47.33, +1.53, +3.34%) rose 1.1% after reporting a fourth-quarter net profit of 793 million Swiss francs ($745 million) compared with a net loss of 6.02 billion francs in the same period a year ago.
Shares of French yogurt, bottled water and baby-nutrition maker Danone (FR:BN 41.78, +0.81, +1.98%) rose 2% after its annual profit rose to 1.36 billion euros from 1.31 billion euros, with sales up 1.6% to 14.98 billion euros as higher volumes offset currency and pricing.
Still, French car maker Renault (FR:RNO 31.55, -1.23, -3.74%) declined 3% as it posted a net loss of 3.07 billion euros ($4.2 billion) in 2009, half of which was attributable to the contribution from associated companies. Revenue dropped 10.8% to 33.7 billion euros compared to the previous year. Read more on Renault.
The firm posted a drop in fourth-quarter revenue to 3.97 billion euros from 4.95 million euros at the same point a year ago, missing analyst forecasts for revenue of 4.39 billion euros. It swung to a fourth-quarter profit of 46 million euros, from a year-earlier loss of 3.89 billion euros.
The firm said that its 2010 adjusted operating margin is now expected in a range of 1% to 5%. It had said that it was aiming for a 5% margin for 2010.
Air France-KLM (FR:AF 10.55, -0.98, -8.46%) shares dropped 8.8% after its third-quarter revenue dropped to 5.2 billion euros, from 6.19 billion euros a year ago. It narrowed its net loss to 295 million euros, from 508 million euros.
