By Amanda Cooper
LONDON, April 17 (Reuters) - European shares edged up on
Thursday, as bank stocks rallied after results on Wall Street,
although gains in the broader market were partially offset by a
decline in shares of Swiss drug maker Roche <ROG.VX>.
Roche was the largest negative weight on the broader
European market, falling 3.5 percent after missing forecasts for
first-quarter sales, which were hit by plunging Tamiflu revenue
and a slowing pace of growth in cancer drugs.
On the upside were Barclays <BARC.L>, Royal Bank of Scotland
<RBS.L> and Societe Generale <SOGN.PA>, which rose between 2.2
and 3.0 percent, and Finland's Nokia <NOK1V.HE>, which reports
earnings later.
Nokia shares were up 1.8 percent. The company is expected to
report a 46 percent rise in earnings thanks to demand in
emerging economies for mobile phone handsets and the share price
has risen nearly 4 percent this week after a raft of strong
earnings within the technology sector.
By 0812 GMT the FTSEurofirst 300 index <> of top
European shares was up 0.2 percent at 1,305.42 points. Advancing
shares outnumbered decliners by about two to one.
The index rose 1.7 percent on Wednesday, driven in part by a
rally in U.S. shares after JP Morgan <JPM.N> broadly met
expectations with its first-quarter earnings and a series of
heavyweights such as Intel <INTC.O> and IBM <IBM.N> sounded an
upbeat note.
"What the market is most sensitive to in this earnings cycle
is any hint, any sign that we're past the worst for the
financial sector, but even more so, what the concern is for the
rest of the market is the degree to which earnings are holding
up," said Bernard McAlinden, a strategist at NCB Stockbrokers in
Dublin.
BIGGEST GAINER
French catering and services group Sodexo was the biggest
gainer in Europe, rising by as much as 11.3 percent after the
company beat expectations with a 10.4 percent rise in half-year
net profits and confirmed its full-year targets.
Shares were last up 9.5 percent, which would put them on
track for their largest one-day rise in over six years, while
about 80 percent of the 30-day full-day average volume had
already gone through.
Mining shares were among the largest contributors to the
rise in the broader market, led in part by Rio Tinto <RIO.L>,
which said it was about a quarter of the way through a plan to
sell $10 billion in assets this year to offset some of the $39
billion it paid for the Canadian aluminium maker Alcan.
Rio shares were last up 1.5 percent while BHP Billiton
<BLT.L> was up 1 percent and Antofagasta <ANTO.L> was up 0.6
percent.
Major oil and gas shares eased as crude oil futures <CLc1>
hovered below Wednesday's record high of $115.21. BP <BP.L>, and
Royal Dutch Shell <RDSa.AS> were down 0.2 and 0.4 percent, while
Total <TOTF.PA>, echoing the outperformance of the French
market, rose 0.3 percent.
Around Europe, London's FTSE 100 <> was up 0.2 percent
while Frankfurt's DAX <> was up 0.2 percent and Paris' CAC
40 <> gained 0.4 percent.
Investors were awaiting results later from Bank of New York
Mellon <BK.N> and Merrill Lynch <MER.N>, as well as Pfizer
<PFE.N> and United Technologies <UTX.N> from outside the
financial sector.
Other gainers in Europe included British Energy <BGY.L>, up
0.8 percent after the Times said Germany's RWE <RWEG.DE> had
teamed up with Sweden's Vattenfall [] to bid for the
nuclear power firm. RWE shares were flat.
France Telecom <FTE.PA> fell 1.7 percent on Thursday after
Finance Director Gervais Pellissier told the Financial Times the
company was considering a bid for TeliaSonera <TLSN.ST>.
The shares lost 6 percent on Wednesday after Le Figaro said
France Telecom was mulling a takeover of the Scandianvian
operator. TeliaSonera <TLSN.ST> was down 2.4 percent.
(Editing by David Holmes)
