European stocks rose, snapping a four-day decline, amid speculation that policy makers around the world will take steps to stimulate economic growth.
CaixaBank led Spanish banks higher, rising 3.1 percent after the country’s budget minister said the lenders don’t need an excessive amount of money. BioInvent International AB plunged after it stopped developing an anticoagulant drug.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.4 percent to 234.76 at 2:53 p.m. in London. The benchmark measure has still declined 14 percent from its 2012 high on March 16 amid growing concern that Greece will leave the euro currency union. U.K. and Danish markets are closed today for public holidays.
“The market is rebounding with the hope that actions will be taken,” said Yves Maillot, the head of investments at Robeco Gestions SA in Paris, who helps oversee $6.8 billion. “Even if the problems in Europe are taking a while to resolve, we are advancing towards decisions.”
The Stoxx 600 fell yesterday as reports showed that orders to U.S. factories unexpectedly declined in April and growth in China’s services industries weakened in May.
Finance ministers and central-bank governors from the G-7 countries hold a call today to discuss the euro area’s sovereign-debt crisis, Canada’s Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, told reporters yesterday in Toronto.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said systemic banks may need supervision at the European level.
European Composite PMI
A gauge of euro-area services and manufacturing output contracted in May. A composite index based on a survey of purchasing managers in both industries dropped to 46 from 46.7 in April, London-based Markit Economics said today, compared with an estimate of 45.9 published on June 1. The measure has remained below 50 -- indicating contraction -- for four months.
Separate reports showed that German and French services activity fell in May more than economists had estimated.
An index of Germany’s services industry based on a survey of purchasing managers dropped to 51.8 last month from 52.2 in April, Markit Economics said today. A measure of the industry in France slipped to 45.1 from 45.2 the previous month.
National benchmark indexes climbed in 12 of the 16 western European markets that opened today. Germany’s DAX dropped 0.7 percent and the Swiss Market Index rose 0.1 percent. France’s CAC 40 advanced 0.8 percent.
U.S. Service Industries
In the U.S., a report at 10 a.m. New York time will probably show that service industries grew in May at the same pace as they did in April, economists predicted. The Institute for Supply Management’s index of non-manufacturing businesses, which covers about 90 percent of the economy, held at 53.5, matching April’s four-month low, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
CaixaBank climbed 3.1 percent to 2.18 euros and Bankinter SA gained 3.2 percent to 2.55 euros. Bankia rose 1.4 percent to 1.03 euros for only its fourth advance in the last month.
Spain’s Budget Minister, Cristobal Montoro, said that the European Union should provide financial aid to the banks.
“That’s why it’s so important that the European institutions open up and help us achieve, help facilitate, that figure because we’re not talking about astronomical figures,” he said in an interview with Spanish broadcaster Onda Cero.
Banco Espirito Santo
Banco Espirito Santo SA jumped 7.8 percent to 49.8 euro cents. Portugal’s biggest publicly traded bank climbed for a second day after the country’s government said it will give more than 6.6 billion euros ($8.2 billion) to Banco Comercial Portugues SA, Banco BPI SA and Caixa Geral de Depositos SA to help them meet capital requirements.
Telekom Austria AG surged 6.2 percent to 7.71 euros, its biggest rally since November, after News Magazine reported that Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, has acquired a 4.1 percent stake in the company.
CGGVeritas soared 5.4 percent to 17.64 euros. The world’s largest seismic surveyor of oilfields was kept as a preferred stock at Societe Generale SA.
Zodiac Aerospace SA, Europe’s largest maker of airliner furnishings, gained 1.4 percent to 75.06 euros. Exane BNP Paribas said companies with significant export sales will gain from the euro’s weakness against the U.S. dollar.
Elekta AB sank 6.3 percent to 320.60 kronor, its biggest drop in five weeks. The world’s second-largest maker of radiation-surgery equipment reported fourth-quarter sales of 3.12 billion kronor ($433 million), missing the average analyst estimate of 3.22 billion kronor.
BioInvent Shares Plunge
BioInvent International tumbled 61 percent to 5.10 kronor. The company and partner ThromboGenics NV stopped work on the drug because it caused too much bleeding in a clinical trial.
Hip or knee surgery patients in a study showed “a significantly higher incidence of bleeding events” from the TB-402 drug than from Bayer AG’s Xarelto, BioInvent and ThromboGenics said in a statement today. ThromboGenics slumped 13 percent, the biggest drop since 2008.
EON AG fell 1.5 percent to 14.19 euros, dropping for a seventh day, its longest losing streak since August. Germany’s largest utility said it may lose millions of euros because of irregularities by a former employee at its trading unit.
The volume of shares changing hands on the Stoxx 600 was 54 percent lower than its average over the last 30 days, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
