MW: European shares rise from five-and-a-half week lows
Miners advance after Australia tax deal; Genmab, Dana Petroleum soar
By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Miners and automakers led European shares off multi-week lows on Friday, with U.S. jobs data slightly better than economist expectations.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index (ST:SXXP 238.80, +1.50, +0.63%) rose 0.9% to 239.35, after closing at a five-and-a-half week low on Thursday on worries about the global economic recovery.
Autos were taking back some sharp losses made in the previous session with BMW (DE:BMW 38.50, -0.23, -0.59%) shares up 1% and Renault (FR:RNO 30.39, +0.83, +2.81%) shares up 2.8%. BMW's June sales in the U.S. rose 11.9%, and Nissan, which is 44% held by Renault, reported a 10.8% increase in U.S. June sales.
Miners, also sensitive to economic trends, were advancing as copper futures rose and Australia's new government amended its controversial proposed mining tax.
U.S. jobs data on Friday showed that payrolls, although down 125,000, didn't drop as much as the 130,000 economists had expected. The reading has been distorted by temporary census hiring recently. A 9.5% jobless rate also surprised positively. Read jobs data preview.
On the economic front in Europe, the number of unemployed workers across the 16-nation euro zone ticked higher in May, but the unemployment rate remained at a 12-year peak of 10% for a third consecutive month. Read more on data.
Of the major regional benchmarks, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 4,852, +46.66, +0.97%) rose 0.7% to 4,837.37, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,886, +28.28, +0.48%) climbed 0.2% to 5,860.68 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,368, +28.50, +0.85%) advanced 0.3% to 3,348.69.
The dollar traded lower against the euro (CUR_EURUSD 1.2598, +0.0083, +0.6632%) , with the common currency at $1.2598 and the British pound (CUR_GBPUSD 1.5192, +0.0023, +0.1517%) rising 0.4% to $1.5212.
On the deal front, shares of oil exploration firm Dana Petroleum (UK:DNX 1,410, +233.00, +19.80%) surged 19% to 14.01 pounds after the Financial Times newspaper reported that South Korean oil firm KNOC is mulling a 1.5 billion pound takeover offer for the firm.
KNOC confirmed it's in talks to make an offer for Dana but didn't disclose a price.
BP (UK:BP. 328.90, +0.95, +0.29%) (BP 29.91, +0.52, +1.77%) shares were down 0.5%.
The firm's 60% stake in its Argentine venture Pan American could fetch as much as $9 billion, the Financial Times newspaper reported Friday citing bankers, analysts and industry executives.
Genmab shares shot up 50.3% after the Danish biotech firm said that it has amended its development deal with GlaxoSmithKline (UK:GSK 1,104, -5.50, -0.50%) (GSK 33.68, -0.24, -0.71%) for ofatumumab, a blood cancer drug, and will receive an upfront payment of 90 million pounds while funding commitments will be capped.
The change will have a material impact on 2010 financial guidance, the firm said, and UBS analysts noted "the deal removes re-financing risk." Glaxo shares edged down 0.3%.
Also in the pharma space, Sanofi-Aventis (FR:SAN 47.27, -0.97, -2.00%) (SNY 29.79, -0.59, -1.94%) shares were down 2.3%.
The French drugmaker is mulling an acquisition in the U.S. that could be worth at least $20 billion, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the situation. The firm declined to comment on the speculation, according to the news service said.
Edenred , spun off from Accor's (FR:AC 23.43, -1.25, -5.05%) prepaid service voucher operations, started trading on Euronext Paris on Friday. The subscription price for the shares was 11.40 euros and the firm recently traded at 14.24 euros, a 25% jump.
Deutsche Boerse (DE:DB1 50.92, +1.31, +2.64%) shares were up 3.9% as the operator of futures and stock exchanges was upped to overweight from equal-weight at Morgan Stanley to reflect improving top-line dynamics and the expectation that continued volatility will support derivative volumes, the broker said.
However, shares of Swiss food producer Nestle (CH:NESN 50.35, -0.85, -1.66%) lost 1.7% after it was downgraded to equal-weight from overweight at the same broker, which said that further earnings upgrades were unlikely.
