Equities up as Total's gain lifts oil companies

Eurostoxx 50: 2,163.40 (+12.24) Frankfurt DAX: 5,408.46 (+2.93) Paris CAC: 3,085.83 (+12.65): EUROPEAN STOCKS climbed yesterday, extending the Stoxx Europe 600 Index's largest rally in three weeks, as oil producers and retailers advanced.

The Stoxx 600 climbed 0.6 per cent in London. The benchmark measure has swung between gains and losses at least 12 times yesterday. The gauge has tumbled 21 per cent from this year’s high in February as concern mounted that Europe’s debt crisis is spreading.

The decline has cut the index’s valuation to 9.6 times estimated earnings, near the cheapest since March 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Equities rallied around the world on Wednesday as investors speculated that President Obama will introduce a $300 billion plan to create more jobs in a speech to Congress.

Mr Obama will propose a stimulus plan in the Republican-controlled House chamber as job growth stalls and the unemployment rate hovers above 9 per cent.

The European Central Bank left interest rates unchanged at 1.5 per cent, as predicted by all 57 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.

The central bank cut its growth forecasts for this year. ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet said the region’s economy faces “particularly high uncertainty and intensified downside risks,” at a press conference in Frankfurt.

In the UK, Bank of England policy makers resisted calls to extend economic stimulus as they attempted to navigate a path between accelerating inflation and a faltering recovery.

Total rose 2.5 per cent to €33.66, leading gains for oil companies.

Tullow Oil jumped 4.8 per cent to 1,227p. Oil advanced as much as 1 per cent after earlier falling as much as 0.8 per cent.

KBC Groep surged 5.9 per cent to €17.53 after Polish newspaper Dziennik Gazeta Prawna reported that Banco Santander, Spain’s biggest bank, seeks to buy KBC’s Polish unit Kredyt Bank.

Home Retail jumped 2 per cent to 117.8p after reporting that sales fell 8.6 per cent in the 13 weeks ended August 27th, a slower pace than the 9.6 per cent decline in its fiscal first quarter.

Danone, the world’s biggest yogurt maker, fell 2.2 per cent to €45.47 after Barclays wrote that the company predicts its third quarter will “be tougher” than the first half of the year. – (Bloomberg)