Europe Shares surge on Greek Hopes and Telecom M&A

A glimmer of hope for some kind of progress over Greece’s debt crisis, as well as yet another proposed takeover bid in the telecoms sector, saw European shares kick the week off with a 1.4 percent rise.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index was up 1.4 percent at 0714 GMT (0314 EDT), with benchmark indexes in London, Paris and Frankfurt up between 1 and 2.4 percent.

The telecoms sector was a top performer: France’s Bouygues Bouygues (BOUY.PA) jumped 13.3 percent after Altice (ATCE.AS) confirmed it had made a takeover bid via its Numericable-SFR (NUME.PA) subsidiary for Bouygues Telecom.

The FTSEurofirst 300 had fallen 7.5 percent ahead of the open since hitting 15-year highs earlier this year, with fears over Athens and expectations of a U.S. interest-rate hike slightly dampening the enthusiasm that greeted the European Central Bank’s launch of a bond-buying scheme to lift economic growth.

“(Monday) promises to be a crazy trading session, although it’s also interesting to see that no-one is really buying volatility today,” said IG strategist Chris Weston. “From this point of view things are quite sanguine.”

71 percent of all open trading positions held by IG clients are bets the German DAX index will rise, said Weston.

Source: Reuters