MW: European shares up for fourth session in a row
Oil producers, banks lead advance; Independent News & Media shares soar
European shares jumped higher on Friday, with banks and oil producers leading a broad-based advance that put stocks on track for a fourth-straight session of gains.
The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP: news , chart , profile ) rose 1.7% to 170.16, bringing gains for this week to almost 7% and paring losses since the start of the month to just under 2%.
Battered banking firms were helping to drive the gains on Friday, with Societe Generale (FR:GLE: news , chart , profile ) shares up 7%, BNP Paribas shares up 3.2% and HSBC Holdings shares up 2.5%.
On a regional level, the U.K. FTSE 100 index rose 1.6% to 3,771.12, the German DAX 30 index climbed 1.3% to 4,008.16 and the French CAC-40 index rose 1.8% to 2,742.07.
Asian shares were also higher on Friday as were U.S. stock futures.
U.S. shares ended with strong gains on Thursday. Investors flowed into bank stocks as Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis said the bank will not need further federal government capital and that it will post a profit in 2009.
Oil producers were strong as light sweet crude futures traded at just under $47 a barrel, with Royal Dutch Shell up 1.7% and Total up 1.5%.
Elsewhere among commodity-sector stocks, Rio Tinto shares rose 3.2% and Vedanta Resources shares rose 4.3%.
Steelmaker Salzgitter (DE:SZG: news , chart , profile ) climbed 3.4%, while ThyssenKrupp (DE:TKA: news , chart , profile ) shares rose 2.6%.
Of companies updating investors on Friday, shares of reinsurance group Swiss Re (CH:RUKN: news , chart , profile ) rose 4.8% to 15.38 Swiss francs.
Swiss Re's planned 3-billion Swiss franc ($2.5 billion) capital injection from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway will be in the form of a perpetual instrument with no maturity date.
Berkshire Hathaway will have the right to convert the investment, which pays annual interest of 12%, into shares after three years. The conversion price will be 25 francs a share.
Swiss Life (CH:SLHN: news , chart , profile ) shares jumped 11.7%. It said that it's in talks about cutting its 24% stake in MLP (DE:MLP: news , chart , profile ) . MLP shares rose 6.3%.
Meanwhile, shares of Irish media group Independent News & Media (UK:INM: news , chart , profile ) surged 90.5%.
It said Friday that Chief Executive Anthony O'Reilly will retire on May 7. Anthony O'Reilly is the largest shareholder in the firm with a 28.5% stake. He will be succeeded by Gavin O'Reilly, currently chief operating officer.
