Defence, motor stocks drive Paris up

Finishing within seven points of its session peak, Paris rose 78.85, or 1.9 per cent, to 4,137.01 with the CAC-40 index retracing almost half of the losses of the three preceding days.

Defence-oriented and motor stocks led the way up with Lagardere and Renault both surging more than 7 per cent with gains of €2.10 to €30.5 and €2.39 to €33.89 respectively. The Kosovo crisis was said to be driving defence shares, while at Renault the story looked to be the possibility that the motor giant would take a stake in Nissan of Japan on more attractive terms than had earlier been suspected.

Frankfurt swung higher, reversing the recent dull trend with a gain of 66.48, or 1.4 per cent, to 4,863.81 on the Xetra DAX index. Motors and banks provided much of the bounce. Deutsche Bank gained 71 cents at €49.90 while Commerzbank, which put out a set of solid results on Wednesday, rallied 81 cents at €27.74. Motors also recovered. Volkswagen, gained €3.71 to €59.5 following a more upbeat analysts' conference than expected. BMW rose €27.50 to €655.

Amsterdam tracked neighbouring markets higher, adding 8.25 or 1.6 per cent to 533.98 on the AEX index. Among the heavyweights, Unilever improved €1.70 to €65.2 and Philips added €1.35 at €72.50. Akzo Nobel turned in the best performance, advancing €1.65 to €36.30.

Zurich capitalised on Wall Street's strong start and the rising dollar. The SMI index closed 133.3, or 1.9 per cent, higher at 7,082.2.

Holderbank overcame early losses to close 16 Swiss francs (€10) higher at SFr1,602 (€1,003) after the world's biggest cement maker published 1998 results in line with expectations, but disappointed with plans for a capital rise.

Stockholm was underpinned by a bullish performance in Ericsson on news it was buying US rival Qualcomm's wireless infrastructure business. This will pave the way for a global wireless standard and boost the Swedish group's position in the US mobile phone market. Ericsson jumped 12.50 Swedish krone (€1.39) to SKr188 (€20.9) and the general index finished 92.08, or 2.8 per cent, higher at 3,341.03.