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European Stocks Extend Relief Rally, Tesco Lags(Alliance News Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) WASHINGTON (Alliance News) - European markets nudged higher for a third day Thursday amid strong gains for French and German stocks. Speculation that the European Central Bank will offer fresh stimulus kept investors nibbling at stocks after big losses earlier this month. The Euro STOXX 50 Index lost 1.19%, and is now slightly positive compared to one year ago. France's CAC 40 Index rose 1.28%, the DAX of Germany added 1.2%, and is slipping 0.31%, the UK's FTSE index inched up only 0.30% due to poor showings from Tesco and Unilever. UK supermarket giant Tesco's profits plunged amid accounting woes. The stock plunged 7%. In other corporate news, Credit Suisse reported third quarter profits that were ahead of expectations. The shares are down over 1% in the Swiss exchange. Nokia also reported better than expected profit growth for its third quarter and also raised its full year core operating margin forecast. Nokia added 3.5%. German automaker Daimler reported a strong increase in its third quarter profits on broad based growth across most of its markets. Daimler rose 1.7%, while Volkswagen and BMW were also firmly positive. French telecom company Orange reported a decline in its third quarter profit and earnings, which was not as worse as expected. The company also confirmed its outlook for the full year. Orange rose 4.6%. Unilever reported a smaller than expected increase in third quarter underlying sales growth, with China seeing marked weakness. The stock tumbled 3.7%. Reed Elsevier reported a modest increase in its underlying revenues for the nine-month period and also maintained its forecast for the year. Anglo American reported higher iron ore output for the third quarter. Shares slipped 1.2%. French brewer Pernod Ricard reported better than expected sales growth despite weakness in China. Shares rose 2.2%. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX |