NYSE Euronext, Deutsche Boerse up; Infineon Technologies downgraded LONDON (MarketWatch) - European shares rose sharply on Monday, following a surge in Asia, as oil majors and banks fronted a broad-based advance, leading strategists to question whether stocks have fallen far enough to trigger a long-term rally. The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index climbed 5% to 199.30. The index is still down more than 45% from where it traded 12 months ago. On Monday oil and natural gas producers stood out, with BG Group up 9% and BP up 5.4%. Banks were also on the rise with shares of Deutsche Bank (DE:514000: news, chart, profile) up 5.7% and shares of Lloyds TSB (LYG: 9.55, +0.10, +1.1%) (UK:LLOY: news, chart, profile) up 6.5%. On a national level, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX: news, chart, profile) surged 4.4% to 4,229.02, the German DAX 30 index (DX:1876534: news, chart, profile) jumped 6% to 4,642.97 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:1804546: news, chart, profile) advanced 6.3% to 3,176.60. Asian stocks soared Monday, with Hong Kong's benchmark stock index up more than 8% and Japan's top index up more than 5%. See Asia Markets. U.S. stock futures were pointing to another day of gains. On Friday, stocks erased losses and shot higher as insurer Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. led a rally in the financial sector by lifting its earnings forecast for the year. See Friday's U.S. Market Snapshot. "It was a very powerful statement by the equity market on Friday when U.S. stocks closed up 3% despite the worst employment report since 1951. This has to make some participants wonder whether, with all the worst possible news on the economy priced in, we can at least start to find some kind of bottom," said Kenneth Broux, economist at Lloyds TSB Corporates & Markets. Darren Winder, head of macroeconomics and strategy at Cazenove, said: "There's a lot of pessimism. [However] I don't think it's going to be any worse than the market is already positioned for." "I believe that the monetary and fiscal actions seen will support economic activity in 2009 and into 2010. You can't just abandon defensive stocks but I think that you need to embrace a degree of cyclicality," he added. Cyclical construction and industrial firms on the move Monday included Siemens (DE:723610: news, chart, profile) (SI: 59.39, +0.01, +0.0%) , up 7.4%, and Ferrovial (ES:016260101: news, chart, profile) , up 7.1%. Deutsche Boerse, NYSE Euronext up Deutsche Boerse (DE:581005: news, chart, profile) climbed 7.3% while NYSE Euronext (FR:NYX: news, chart, profile) (NYX: 21.39, +1.41, +7.1%) advanced 9.9%. Deutsche Boerse said over the weekend that any talks held between the two exchange operators ended without a result. Reports had speculated the firms were mulling a tie-up. See full story. U.K. hotel and restaurant operator Whitbread (UK:WTB: news, chart, profile) jumped 6.2%. Sales in the 39 weeks to Nov. 27 rose 6.7% on a comparable basis and 13.4% on a total basis. "Our trading has been robust, although we have seen some softening of growth in November," Chief Executive Alan Parker said. The firm is planning to limit capital expenditure in its next fiscal year to roughly 200 million pounds, compared with 300 million pounds in fiscal 2009. Shares in HSBC Holdings (HBC: 53.30, +2.41, +4.7%) (UK:HSBA: news, chart, profile) rose 2.8%. The lender is planning to increase funding available for U.K. mortgage lending by 20% to 15 billion pounds in 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported. Switzerland's troubled financial-services giant, UBS, (UBS: 12.51, +0.72, +6.1%) (CH:002489948: news, chart, profile) advanced 4.6%. The firm may announce as many as 4,500 more job cuts in coming weeks, Swiss newspapers reported Sunday. Still, German semiconductor maker Infineon (IFX: 1.20, 0.00, 0.0%) (DE:623100: news, chart, profile) underperformed the market with a 6.9% drop. Goldman Sachs cut its stance on the firm to neutral from buy, saying it believes capital structure concerns are likely to persist over coming months, driven by the accelerating cash burn of the operational business rather than just potential liabilities with respect to Qimonda. The broker told clients that its analysts of likely cash outflows over the coming 12 months suggests the potential requirement for additional capital in order to meet 2010 bond obligations, either in the form of deft refinancing or potential new equity.

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