July 7 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks climbed for the first time in four days amid signs U.K. home prices are steadying and the outlook for the manufacturing and service industries is improving. Persimmon Plc advanced 4.7 percent as the U.K.’s largest homebuilder by market value said house prices are stabilizing in some locations. BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group gained more than 3 percent as base metals rebounded in London. A British Chambers of Commerce survey of 5,600 companies showed today that manufacturing and services companies’ confidence increased in the three months through June. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index added 0.8 percent to 203.35 at 11:04 a.m. in London, having earlier fluctuated between gains and losses at least eight times. The gauge has surged 29 percent since March 9 on speculation government measures will help pull the global economy out of the deepest recession since World War II. “We continue to be encouraged by the improvement in most leading indicators,” said Andrew Cole, a London-based fund manager at Baring Asset Management. “However, there are few signs yet of any powerful underlying rebound in economic activity.” German manufacturing orders jumped the most in almost two years in May. Orders, adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, rose 4.4 percent from April, the Economy Ministry in Berlin said today. That’s the biggest gain since June 2007 and almost nine times the 0.5 percent increase forecast by economists in a Bloomberg News survey. BOE Asset Purchases The BCC today urged the Bank of England to extend its asset-purchase program to the full 150 billion pounds ($243 billion) authorized by the government and ask permission to start a further phase of money printing because an economic recovery “is not guaranteed.” U.S. stocks gained yesterday, erasing an earlier slump, as optimism that global credit markets are improving overshadowed a drop in commodity producers. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 0.5 percent today. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slid 0.5 percent, a fifth straight day of declines. Persimmon climbed 4.7 percent to 380.25 pence. The U.K.’s largest homebuilder by market value said it would take something “substantial” like another bank failure to force further land writedowns and prices are stabilizing in some locations. Mining Companies Basic-resource companies posted the steepest gain among all 19 industry groups on the Stoxx 600 as copper, lead, tin and zinc advanced on the London Metal Exchange. BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, advanced 3.3 percent to 1,329.5 pence. Rio Tinto, the third-biggest, added 4 percent to 1,959.5 pence. William Morrison Supermarkets Plc, the smallest of the four main U.K. food retailers, climbed 2 percent to 245 pence after Bank of America Corp. raised its recommendation to “buy” from “neutral.” Air France-KLM Group, Europe’s biggest airline, slipped 2.8 percent to 8.59 euros as passenger traffic slumped for a sixth consecutive month. Traffic, or the number of passengers multiplied by the distance flown, fell 6.4 percent from a year earlier in June. The load factor, or proportion of seats filled, declined 1.1 percentage points to 80.3 percent. Samsung Electronics Co., Asia’s largest maker of computer- memory chips and flat screens, gained 2.5 percent to 650,000 won. BNP Paribas SA raised its recommendation to “buy” from “hold,” saying the company’s second-quarter earnings guidance was “significantly” higher than analysts’ expectations. The brokerage lifted its share-price estimate to 740,000 won from 630,000 won in a report today.

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