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Europe buoyed by insurers
LONDON, England (CNN) -- European markets ended strongly on Thursday, led by insurance stocks, after Germany's Allianz delivered an upbeat forecast. London's FTSE 100 was up 0.6 percent to 4,055.2, while the CAC 40 blue chip index in Paris gained 3.7 percent to 3,148.6 and Frankfurt's electronically traded Xetra Dax rose 3.2 percent to 3,164.8. The pan-European FTSE Eurotop 300, a broader index of the region's largest stocks, was up 2 percent. German insurer Allianz (FALZ), Europe's biggest insurer, gained 8 percent to 104.90 euros after it posted a third-quarterly loss but said it expected better results in the next quarter. (Full story) "The market had been expecting poor results from Allianz so the numbers were no surprise," Edwin Slaghekke, a global fund manager at Theodoor Gilissen, told Reuters. The Allianz results helped lift other insurance stocks. France's Axa (PCS) rose 8.25 percent to 13.64 euros and the UK's Prudential (PRU) added 5 percent to 455 pence. UK telecoms group Cable & Wireless (CW) was down 10.2 percent to 74.5 pence after it said on Wednesday it would slash about 3,500 jobs as it retreats from U.S. and continental European markets. (Full story) HSBC Holdings (HSBA) fell 4 percent to 681 pence after it said it had agreed to buy leading U.S. consumer finance company Household International for $14.2 billion, boosting HSBC's presence in North America. (Full story) Two of Europe's biggest banks posted gloomy third-quarter results on Thursday as a downturn in global markets cut into their bottom line. Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second largest financial group, rose 7.6 percent to 29 Swiss francs despite reporting a record net loss of 2.1 billion francs in the quarter, worse than expected. France's Societe Generale (PGLE) added 6.6 percent to 51.60 euros after its third-quarter net profit tumbled by a larger-than-expected 63 percent due to plunging markets. (Full story) Deutsche Telekom (FDTE), was up 3.9 percent to 11.7 euros. The group on Thursday named Kai-Uwe Ricke as its new chief executive and it is expected to announce long-awaited restructuring plans when it posts it earnings. German electronic components maker Epcos soared to 15.5 percent to 11.5 euros after saying it saw signs of recovery in the embattled components sector. The AEX index in Amsterdam was up 2.9 percent, the SMI in Zurich gained 2.4 percent and Milan's MIB30 index rose 2.9 percent. In the U.S. on Thursday, stocks rallied across the board, ignited by a pair of better-than-expected reports on retail sales and employment. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 80.10 to 8478.59, the Nasdaq composite rose 23.05 to 1384.39 and the Standard & Poor's 500 index scored gains of over 1 percent.
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