Optimism among oil firms and carmakers lifts European shares

European stocks rose for the first time in four days as a surge in crude propelled energy companies higher and carmakers rose on signs the region’s economy is improving.

US stocks rebounded from a weekly decline, led by energy and raw-materials producers as a rally in crude bolstered optimism that the drag from weakness in the oil patch will abate.

Dublin

The Iseq rose just over 0.5 per cent yesterday, as European shares generally surged.

Pharmaceutical company Malin was among the best performers in Dublin, closing up well over 7 per cent. The company announced in recent days that it had beefed up its senior management team with an executive from financial behemoth BlackRock.

Datalex, the travel software firm, also rose on the back of optimism in the sector. At one stage in mid afternoon trading, it was up more than 3.5 per cent, but it lost some ground in late trading and finished up 1.2 per cent.

Sellers in the market helped drag Fyffes down by more than 4 per cent in the afternoon, although it recovered some of this ground, finishing 2.8 per cent in the red.

Ryanair finished down almost 1 per cent on a read-through from cautious analyst comments relating to its rival Easyjet.

London

Royal Dutch Shell

climbed 2.8 per cent, while

BP

advanced 1.7 per cent as crude climbed. Mining firms

BHP Billiton

and

Rio Tinto Group

gained more than 2 per cent. The moves pushed the FTSE 100 Index up 0.8 per cent, erasing a slide of 0.3 per cent.UK equities have become this year’s best performers in the developed world, thanks to a tumbling pound and a recovery in commodities.

Among stocks falling, EasyJet, which sank to its lowest price since 2013 on Friday, dropped another 2.3 per cent after Societe Generale recommended selling the shares.

Housebuilders including Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey dropped more than 2.6 per cent after an analyst said Knight Frank results offer further sign of blows to the Central London property market.

Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland Group slipped after Citigroup said the firms' capital levels may get hit because of their exposure to defined benefit pension liabilities.

Europe

Vivendi

added 1.8 per cent after Vincent Bollore’s investment company raised its stake in the French media conglomerate to more than 20 per cent.

Deutsche Bank rebounded 3.4 per cent as Austrian Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling said that the German lender should be able to "solve the problems with the United States" and that a punishment of $10 billion would be too much.

Ingenico Group slid 1.7 per cent after Barclays cut its rating of the French payments processor to equal weight, similar to hold, from overweight, citing tougher competition.

New York

The S&P 500 had climbed 0.7 per cent to 2,168.39 by mid-morning in New York, reversing a 0.3 per cent decline on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had added 140.26 points, or 0.8 per cent, to 18,380.75.

The Nasdaq Composite Index had increased 0.9 per cent. West Texas Intermediate crude futures in New York rose 2.9 per cent toward a four-month high.

Mylan surged 9.3 per cent after agreeing to pay $465 million to settle a probe over how the drugmaker charged Medicaid for its allergy shot EpiPen.

Electric carmaker Tesla was up 2.85 per cent at $202.21 after chief executive Elon Musk said it would not need to raise equity or corporate debt in the fourth quarter for its planned acquisition of SolarCity, whose shares also rose.

Merck rose 3.1 per cent after clinical data showed its Keytruda immunotherapy offered big benefits in previously untreated lung cancer patients, either when given on its own or with chemotherapy.

Twitter dropped 6.7 per cent and was the top mover premarket after a report that potential bidders, including Salesforce.com, were said to have backed off. (Additional reporting: Bloomberg/Reuters)