By Simon Kennedy
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European markets moved sharply higher in early trading Friday following overnight gains for Asian markets, with mining stocks among the strongest performers as gold prices continued to rise. Among stocks on the move, shares in Kazakhmys (UK:KAZ 1,404, +39.00, +2.86%) and Xstrata (UK:XTA 1,184, +23.00, +1.98%) both rose 1.9%. In deal news, shares in Dutch vaccines company Crucell (NL:CRXL 24.15, +8.46, +53.87%) jumped around 55% after the company said it's in advanced talks over a potential takeover by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 61.29, +0.24, +0.39%) . Among the main indexes, the FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 5,597, +57.18, +1.03%) rose 0.8% to 5,587.07, the French CAC 40 index (FR:PX1 3,782, +45.20, +1.21%) rose 1.2% to 3,779.66 and the German DAX 30 index (DX:DAX 6,306, +56.44, +0.90%) added 0.9% at 6,303.40. |
