MW: European shares pare early gains as oil firms weigh
Misys shares rally after Allscripts deal; Outokumpu also advances
By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Shares in Europe moved off early highs on Wednesday, pulled down by losses in the oil and gas sector, although investors responded favourably to an update from retailer Inditex.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index (ST:SXXP 241.93, +1.87, +0.78%) rose 0.4% to 240.94, after shedding 3.6% over the last three sessions.
The volatile mining and financial sectors gained on Wednesday with mineral extractor Kazakhmys (UK:KAZ 1,086, +27.00, +2.55%) up 1.4% and French bank Credit Agricole (FR:ACA 8.08, +0.05, +0.66%) , up 0.9%.
On the regional level, the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,398, +17.94, +0.53%) rose 0.2% to 3,386.30, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,898, +30.09, +0.51%) rose 0.2% to 5,878.42 and the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 5,035, +6.60, +0.13%) lost 0.1% to 5,022.24.
The commodity-heavy U.K. index struggled as BP (UK:BP. 390.80, -18.10, -4.43%) (BP 34.25, -0.43, -1.23%) shares fell 3.4%, bringing quarter-to-date losses to 37%, and Royal Dutch Shell (UK:RDSA 1,766, -14.50, -0.82%) (RDS.A 51.87, +0.68, +1.33%) shares lost 1.1%.
Asian markets were mixed although the Shanghai Composite index rose sharply in afternoon trading, reversing earlier losses, amid a report of upbeat export and loan growth data for May.
U.S. stock futures were pointing to a bit of consolidation on Wall Street, with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures down 20 points.
Shares of Spanish clothing retailer Inditex (ES:ITX 46.00, +2.13, +4.84%) climbed 4.6% after its first-quarter net income rose 63% to 301 million euros ($359.6 million), with sales up 14% at 2.7 billion euros. See full story.
Shares of Misys (UK:MSY 266.50, +43.00, +19.24%) rallied 19.3% to 267 pence as the U.K. firm is selling most of its 54.6% stake in Allscripts to Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions (MDRX 18.42, -0.25, -1.34%) for $1.3 billion. The firm also named Stephen Wilson as its new financial chief.
Stainless steel producer Outokumpu (FI:OUT1V 12.52, +0.33, +2.71%) rose 2.4%.
It said that it will double ferrochrome production capacity in Finland via an investment of 440 million euros and will also invest 104 million euros to increase capacity of stainless steel quarto plate production.
