- Equities move up after US corporate results
- Spanish long-term bond yields slightly higher following auction
- Carrefour moves higher after sales figures
- Banks deposited 173.3bn euros overnight at ECB

FTSE-100: 0.17%
Dax30: 0.01%
Cac-40: 0.95%
FTSE Mibtel 30: 0.94%
Ibex 35: 0.59%
Stoxx 600: 0.21%

European equities are now advancing in unison following the release of the latest batch of quarterly results from some of the largest US financial institutions.

That ahead of a barrage of economic data expected out in the United States. As an aside, there is also some interest ahead of the release, tomorrow, of Chinese gross domestic product figures.

Acting as a backdrop are the positive comments out of economists at Barclays Research regarding the latest French labour market reforms and reports in the Portuguese press alluding to the possibility that the country may return to international debt markets sooner than had been expected.

Related to the above, Bloomberg TV is today highlighting the strong demand out of London for Italian debt at the country's last Treasury auction. In fact, the country's bonds are now significantly outperforming their peers.

As for today's Spanish Treasury debt auction, the country was able to sell just above the maximum amount which it had targeted, which was €4.5bn.

Carrefour rises on strong sales in Latin America

Dutch chip equipment maker ASML is off after the company said that it expects full-year net sales to come in at a similar level to 2012, instead of rising by near 10% as expected by analysts.

French drinks maker Remy Cointreau on the other hand has reported a higher than forecast increase in third quarter organic sales.

Carrefour is rocketing higher by 6% after reporting strong growth in Latin America and saying that business continued to improve in France.

From a sector stand-point the best performance on the DJ Stoxx is to be seen in the following sectors: Retail (0.99%), Media (0.61%) and Banks (0.55%).

Unemployment rose in Holland
Swiss import prices rose at a 0.1% month-on-month pace in December.

The unemployment rate in Holland rose to 7.2% in January after a reading of 7% in December.

The European Central Bank's (ECB) monthly bulletin mimicked the ECB President's last press conference.

Eurozone construction fell by 0.4% month-on-month in November.

Small gain in single currency
The euro/dollar is now slightly higher by 0.57% to the 1.3369 dollar mark.

Front month Brent crude futures are now moving up by 0.372 dollars to the 110.09 dollar mark.



AB

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