* FTSEurofirst 300 <> rises ** percent
* UBS surges on report of fixed income revenue
* Miners gain as dollar weakens
By Brian Gorman
LONDON, March 30 (Reuters) - European shares rose in early
trade on Tuesday, tracking gains in the United States and Japan,
and with miners gaining on strong metals prices, while UBS
<UBSN.VX> jumped on a report about the performance of the Swiss
bank's fixed-income business.
At 0840 GMT the FTSEurofirst 300 <> index of top
European shares was up 0.3 percent at 1,082.39 points, and had
reached 1,086.03, the highest since early October 2008.
The European benchmark is up more than 67 percent from its
lifetime low of March 9, 2009.
"There's been no bad news out from banks and metals prices
are strong," said Colin McLean, managing director at fund
manager SVM in Edinburgh.
"But there may be an element of window dressing to it (the
market's rise) at the end of the quarter. Some institutions may
have found themselves with more cash than they planned."
Miners rose, as a weaker dollar helped to keep the price of
copper near Monday's 19-month high, and gold <XAU=> edged up.
Anglo American <AAL.L>, BHP Billiton <BLT.L>, Rio Tinto
<RIO.L> and Xstrata <XTA.L> rose between 0.9 and 2.1 percent.
UBS rose 4.4 percent. It has raked in about $2.3 billion in
revenue at its rebuilt fixed income division in the first
quarter, Bloomberg said, citing people with knowledge of the
situation.
Other banks to rise included Barclays <BARC.L>, Credit
Suisse <CSGN.VX> and Deutsche Bank <DBKGn.DE>, up between 0.8
and 1.4 percent.
However, Allied Irish Banks <ALBK.I> fell 12.8 percnt,
taking its decline over three days to more than 30 percent,
ahead of announcements expected later on Tuesday on the size of
discounts to be placed on the Irish banks' loans to be taken
over by the Irish government's new "bad bank" and the extent of
recapitalisation and nationalisation needed.
Across Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 <>, Germany's DAX
<> and France's CAC40 <> were up between 0.1 and 0.2
percent.
U.S. stocks hit an 18-month closing high on Monday as miners
and energy companies advanced on dollar weakness and investors
bought recent high fliers as the quarter's end approached.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 <> rose 1 percent to an
18-month closing high on Tuesday.
Some defensive plays, such as pharmaceuticals, slipped.
GlaxoSmithKline <GSK.L> slid 1 percent, falling for a third day.
Shire <SHP.L> and AstraZeneca <AZN.L> fell 1.6 and 0.9 percent
respectively.
AMEC RISES
AMEC <AMEC.L> rose 2.7 percent after the oil services and
engineering group bought Entec Holdings for 61.2 million pounds,
prompting an upgrade from Seymour Pierce to "outperform" from
"hold".
Britain's economy came out of an 18-month recession in the
fourth quarter of last year with more momentum than expected,
official data showed.
The Office for National Statistics said the economy grew 0.4
percent in the last three months of 2009, the first quarter of
growth since the first quarter of 2008 and above analysts
expectations for an unrevised reading of +0.3 percent.
Later in the session, investors are due to get more data on
house prices and consumer confidence in the United States.
(Editing by Greg Mahlich)
(brian.gorman@thomsonreuters.com; +44 20 7542 9128; Reuters
Messaging: brian.gorman.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
