BLBG:European Stocks Pare Advance as Oil Producers Retreat
European stocks pared their gains as the shares of utilities and oil producers declined. U.S. index futures and Asian shares advanced.
The benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.1 percent to 254.57 at 8:44 a.m. in London. The gauge fell to its lowest level since January on April 10 amid mounting concern that the region’s debt crisis would resurface and as a U.S. report showed employers in the world’s largest economy added fewer jobs in March than forecast.
Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) expiring in June rose 0.3 percent today, while the MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.6 percent.
“What we saw last week was just a correction,” said Morten Kongshaug, chief equity strategist at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen, who has an overweight rating on European equities. “The debt crisis remains my biggest worry, but first-quarter earnings have a lot of potential to calm investors, especially if they show European lenders are doing alright.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Levring in Copenhagen at plevring1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Rummer at arummer@bloomberg.net
