Europe stocks climb, awaiting US reopen

Europe's main stock markets rose in late morning deals on Tuesday as London reopened after a long holiday weekend. Traders were also awaiting the return of activity on Wall Street following gains for indices across Asia. London's benchmark FTSE 100 index jumped 1.58 percent to 6,759.15 points, Frankfurt's Dax climbed 1.07 percent to 8,472.66 points and in Paris the CAC 40 index of leading shares advanced 1.35 percent to 4,049.01. "UK blue chips are trading markedly higher this morning after yesterday's European gains, undoing some of the damage done by sharp declines at the back end of last week," said Matt Basi, head of UK sales trading at CMC Markets. "Despite a general resurgence in demand for equities at the open, concerns over Chinese growth prospects have capped the resources sector, which lags the broader index with mining names occupying the bottom five in the FTSE performers list early on." Europe's stock markets had closed on a positive note on Monday as dealers said investors focused on profit-taking, while London and New York were shut for holidays. Despite the positivity among traders, French consumers are deeply pessimistic, being as gloomy as they have ever been since 1987, official data showed on Tuesday. They are increasingly worried about the outlook for their living standards, a monthly index compiled by the national statistics institute INSEE showed. The index measures household confidence, which determines the level of household consumption, a key driver of growth in any economy and particularly so in France which is burdened by a big structural trade deficit. In foreign exchange trading Tuesday, the euro dropped to $1.2899 from $1.2931 late in New York on Monday. The dollar advanced to 102.01 yen from 100.95 yen on Monday. "For today we have US consumer confidence data that should attract some attention to gauge whether the US recovery is continuing and for the forex markets what the implications of this will be in relation to Fed policy," said Phil McHugh of Currencies Direct. "Last week Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke opened the door for an early exit of the Fed's QE (stimulus) programme and this has driven dollar gains in the market." On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold retreated to $1,380.91 an ounce from $1,390.25 late on Friday. Asian stocks rose on Tuesday, with Tokyo clawing back some ground in choppy trade following sharp declines in recent sessions as a stronger yen prompted a bout of profit-taking. Tokyo swung between positive and negative territory in a volatile session before closing up 1.2 percent at 14,311.98 points. Wall Street was meanwhile "set to lurch higher as the shortened trading week gets underway, with traders still not convinced it's time to shift direction yet", said Fawad Razaqzada, a strategist at GFT Markets. "Some solid gains in Asia overnight and a buoyant start in Europe are also lending support, but with (a US) consumer confidence reading for May due to be released shortly after the opening bell, a number like this could still end up acting as a meaningful catalyst."