Stocks Pare Losses On US Retail Sales

Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
Sep 14, 2010 - 11:05 AM

By: PaddyPowerTrader

Weekend clarity on bank capital requirements out of Basel III coupled with better than expected Chinese industrial production and an EU forecast for stronger growth buoyed US equities Monday. On a sector level, semis and financial stocks led all gainers as Gartner Research estimated that semiconductor equipment spending would double in 2010 and as large cap financial companies reacted positively to less stringent capital requirements and timing i.e. allowing a longer than expected transitional period JP Morgan . and Bank of America both rose more than 3 percent while Alcoa and General Electric gained more than 1.6 percent. Microsoft advanced 5.3 percent on news that the software maker will sell debt to fund dividends and buybacks.

But today the Basel / China bounce has faded as European stocks digested a poor ZEW investor sentiment report from Germany, a higher than expected inflation number from the UK and another disappointing fall in the UK RICS house price index. But better than expected US retail sales figures have seen stocks pare loses over lunchtime

Some notable movers this European morning include :

Philips, which lost 2 percent Tuesday after saying it is aiming for annual comparable sales growth on average of at least 2 percent higher than global gross domestic product in the next five years. This was deemed a very conservative by the markets.

And E.ON retreated 3 percent after Germany’s biggest utility was downgraded to “holdâ€