UBS shares down after reporting earnings; SAS shares slide By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European shares gained in a choppy session on Tuesday, as hopes for a solution to Greece's fiscal woes offset declines for Swiss bank UBS and property giant Unibail-Rodamco. The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 239.66, +0.75, +0.31%) rose 0.4% to 239.86. On Monday, the index advanced for the first time in four sessions. Stocks closed at three-month lows last week as investors worried that Greece could default on its loan obligations. Although there wasn't any action from the G7 meeting of finance leaders over the weekend, investors are now looking ahead to a meeting of European officials in Brussels on Thursday. "We should get a better idea of how close the European Union is to intervening in Greece," said Kenneth Broux, economist at Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets. The euro was recently trading up 0.7% at $1.3751. Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, left a summit in Sydney early and the news helped ratchet up expectations of a support plan for Greece. Read Trichet flight story. "Clearly, a solution will be found in the short term," said Edmund Shing, strategist at Barclays Capital. "They do have funding issues through April, May and they do have to refinance," he added. Greek banks were notably higher on Tuesday, with Alpha Bank shares up 10.3% and Piraeus Bank shares were up 8%, boosting the Greek ASE Composite which was up 4.6% at 1,890.78, recouping all of Monday's 3.9% loss. Major regional indexes were also higher, as the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 5,115, +23.14, +0.45%) rose 0.7% to 5,127.43, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,513, +28.13, +0.51%) climbed 0.7% to 5,520.44 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,620, +12.40, +0.34%) advanced 0.5% to 3,624.95. Stocks jumped on Wall Street in early trading. Metal futures were up and miners advanced for a second day in Europe, with shares of Rio Tinto (UK:RIO 3,195, +126.00, +4.11%) (RTP 201.65, +14.07, +7.50%) up 4.4% and shares of Xstrata (UK:XTA 1,032, +47.20, +4.80%) extending earnings-related gains made Monday with another 5.2% rise. Swatch Group (CH:UHRN 54.05, +2.45, +4.75%) shares were up 4.9% after its annual profit fell to 759 million Swiss francs ($708 million) from 834 million francs a year ago, but exceeded analyst forecasts for a 700 million franc profit. However, it wasn't all good news on the earnings front and UBS (CH:UBSN 13.54, -0.62, -4.38%) (UBS 12.73, -0.11, -0.86%) shares dropped 2.2%. The Swiss banking giant swung to a fourth-quarter profit of 1.21 billion Swiss francs ($1.12 billion), after losing 9.56 billion francs in the prior year period. Lower costs and a 480 million franc tax credit helped the group turn to profitability. Analysts had anticipated a 426 million franc profit. See UBS story. But UBS saw outflows of 56.2 billion francs during the period, which wasn't as steep as the 85.8 billion francs in the prior-year period but worse than the 36.7 billion francs in the third quarter. Shares of airline SAS (SE:SAS 3.53, -0.08, -2.22%) slumped 21.8% after it announced a 5 billion Swedish krona ($677 million) rights issue, said it would cut 700 jobs and posted a worse-than-expected fourth-quarter net loss of 1.3 billion kronor. Read more on SAS. Unibail-Rodamco (FR:UL 145.75, -8.35, -5.42%) , Europe's largest listed property company, fell 4.9% to 146 euros after saying its annual loss widened to 1.47 billion euros ($2 billion) from 1.12 billion euros, as the company took a 2.3 billion euro hit due to lower real estate and financial-instrument values. Its net asset value per share fell 15% to 128.20 euros -- the firm said most of the change occurred in the first half -- and the group said it will increase its dividend by 7% to 8 euros. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected a 768 million euro loss, a 134.98 euro NAV and an 8.04 euros a share payout.

Source