BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - European stocks closed on a strong note on Wednesday with some upbeat earnings updates and data showing an unexpected jump in Germany's exports aiding sentiment.
Optimism about growth outweighed concerns about imminent rate hikes and policy tightening by the central banks. Investors awaited the inflation data from the U.S., due on Thursday.
The pan European Stoxx 600 climbed 1.72%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 gained 1.01%, Germany's DAX surged up 1.57% and France's CAC 40 ended 1.46% up, while Switzerland's SMI advanced 1.75%.
Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Turkey all ended with impressive gains.
In the UK market, Ocado Group gained more than 6%, rebounding strongly after a severe setback in the previous session. IAG, ITV, Admiral Group, Antofagasta, Ashtead Group, Scottish Mortgage, Mondi, Entain, Melrose Industries, Pershing Square Holdings, Smith (DS), Whitbread and Kingfisher gained 3 to 5%.
Smurfit Kappa Group, an Irish corrugated packaging company, rallied 2% after delivering record earnings despite 'significant and unprecedented cost inflation' in 2021. Barratt Developments gained nearly 1% after the housebuilder reported a slight rise in pretax profit for the first half of fiscal 2022.
Evraz declined more than 3%. Airtel Africa, Sainsbury (J), Standard Chartered, GlaxoSmithKline, Unilever and Prudential shed 1 to 2%.
In the German market, Volkswagen rallied more than 6%. Infineon Technologies gained nearly 5%, Daimler moved up 4.4% and BMW gained nearly 4%. Deutsche Post, Siemens Healthineers, Adidas, Merck and Deutsche Telekom also rose sharply.
Sartorius tumbled 4.8%. Zalando declined more than 3% and Qiagen shed about 2%.
In Paris, Saint Gobain, Atos, STMicroElectronics, WorldLine, Safran, Air France-KLM, Valeo and Capgemini gained 3 to 5%.
Renault, Publicis Groupe, Dassault Systemes, Sodexo, Teleperformance, Legrand, Essilor, Schneider Electric, Bouygues, Unibail Rodamco, Hermes International, Societe Generale and Technip gained 2 to 3%.
Danish jewelry maker Pandora soared nearly 8% after it reported full-year earnings in line with preliminary results and proposed a new 3.3 billion Danish kroner ($506.2 million) share buyback.
Shares of ABN Amro tumbled more than 9% despite the Dutch lender reporting stronger than expected fourth-quarter earnings.
Data released by Destatis revealed Germany's exports increased unexpectedly in December, rising by 0.9% month-on-month. Although this was weaker than the 1.8% increase seen in November, the monthly growth confounded the expected fall of 0.2%.
At the same time, growth in imports accelerated to 4.7% from 3.4% in the previous month. Economists had forecast a decline of 1.5%.
As imports growth exceeded the rise in exports, the trade surplus dropped to EUR 6.8 billion from EUR 10.8 billion in the previous month.
On a yearly basis, exports and imports advanced 15.6% and 27.8%, respectively.
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