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Insurance boosts Europe's markets
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Insurance companies gave European markets a boost but the driving force is still the Gulf War, experts say. London's FTSE 100 ended up 0.5 percent to 3,771.1 and the CAC 40 blue chip index in Paris finished 1.6 percent higher at 2788.69, while Frankfurt's electronically traded Xetra Dax was down 0.8 percent ending 2569.81. The pan-European FTSE Eurotop 300, a broader index of the region's largest stocks, was up 1.2 percent. "Iraq is the main thing driving this market. There are no other real issues at the moment," Krijn Moens, an asset manager at Eureffect in Amsterdam, told Reuters. "We're still looking at a weak economic environment, but the fact that the coalition forces are almost inside Baghdad is giving the market hope that this war will soon be over." Meanwhile, the market had little reaction to the European Central Bank's decision to leave interest rates on hold at 2.5 percent, as was widely expected. (Full story) In corporate news, French cosmetics giant L'Oreal rose 4.9 percent to 61.05 euros after reporting better than expected sales growth and saying it planned to rack up its 19th year of double-digit profit growth. Insurers were also up as funding fears eased. France's Axa (PCS) rose 2.5 percent to 12.02 euros and rival ING gained 3.9 percent to 12.20 euros. Reinsurers rose after investment bank JP Morgan upgraded the sector to "overweight," Reuters said. Swiss Re gained 5.2 percent to 76.80 euros, while Munich Re (MUV2) was up 0.6 percent to 61.67 euros -- off its highs for the session -- in late Frankfurt trading. The AEX index in Amsterdam rose 1.4 percent and Milan's MIB30 index gained 1 percent, while the SMI in Zurich climbed 1.3 percent. In the U.S. on Thursday, stocks retreated from earlier gains as some investors sold off to make a profit after two days of solid gains on Wall Street. Despite the early decline, the tone in the market remained upbeat and many traders stayed glued to their screens watching the latest news from Iraq. At 1530 GMT, the Dow Jones industrial average up 10.23 points to 8295.29 and the Nasdaq composite gained 5.38 points, while the S&P 500 index down 0.31 points to 880.59.
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