Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange yesterday.
LONDON: European stock markets ended yesterday’s session mostly flat, ceding early gains ahead of a busy week as earnings season comes into full swing, dealers said. London’s FTSE 100 index of leading shares finished the day just 0.08 percent higher at 6,560.25 points.
Frankfurt’s DAX 30 rose 0.17 percent to 8,259.03 points, while the CAC 40 in Paris closed unchanged at 3,968.91 points.
The euro fell to $1.3255 from $1.3278 in New York on Friday and the dollar dropped to 97.86 yen from 98.20 yen.
On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold fell to $1,329.75 an ounce from $1,331 on Friday.
Earlier, a merger deal announced on Sunday between French advertising giant Publicis and its US rival Omnicom buoyed the markets.
The new Publicis Omnicom Group will be a global leader in its sector and is worth an estimated $35.1bn. Shares in Publicis closed 0.08 percent higher at ¤59.4.
The huge deal brings together top ad agency brands like Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett, Razorfish, BBDO and Ketchum, while clients include Nike, LVMH, Nestle from Publicis and Volkswagen, Unilever and ExxonMobil.
The new entity, if approved by European and US anti-trust watchdogs, will leapfrog the WPP group as market leader. Regardless, WPP shares ended up 0.60 percent at 1,182 pence.
In Paris, shares in French advertising group Havas rose by 4.68 percent to close at ¤5.70, with analysts saying that the scale of the deal would trigger reviews and negotiations of contracts that would raise opportunities for other big ad groups to gain business.
Markets won a further boost after US drugs company Perrigo agreed to buy Irish biotech firm Elan for about $8.6bn in cash and shares. In Paris, shares in nickel mining group Eramet plunged 8.39 percent after the company reported a net loss for the first quarter.
Stocks in German industrial firm Siemens fell 0.28 percent to ¤79.46. Over the weekend Siemens said it would replace chief executive Peter Loescher, who has been criticised for missing targets.
US markets traded lower in anticipation of this week’s high-profile economic calendar, which includes a meeting of the US Federal Reserve’s policy-making committee and releases of second-quarter US economic growth and monthly jobs data.
In afternoon trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.73 percent to 15,507.76 and the broad-based S&P 500 fell 0.77 percent, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.27 percent. AFP
