European equity markets made a positive start to trading on Friday at the end of a busy week for corporate earnings. The FTSE Eurofirst 300 rose 0.1 percent to 1,386.91 while the German Dax increased 0.3 percent to 6,059.5 and the French CAC 40 gained 0.2 percent to 5,241.9. Alliance & Leicester jumped 7 percent to £12.00 after a newspaper report that Banco Santander of Spain is in exclusive talks to buy the UK banking group for £6.5bn. Santander dipped 0.4 percent to €11.99. Sanofi-Aventis, the French drug-maker, announced better-than-expected 53.6 percent increase in net profits. Sanofi dipped 0.2 percent to €76.50. Deutsche Borse rose 1.5 percent to €114.70 after it announced record quarterly profits but made no comment on prospects for a deal with rival bourse operator Euronext, which was 0.8 percent firmer at €74.55.
10 year German Bunds saw a 1 basis point increase to 4.033 with prices down to 95.780.
Written by Boris Schlossberg, Senior Currency Strategist