Technology stocks held the spotlight to the end of the year's equity trading, led by huge leaps by two Finnish issues as paper thin trading volume magnified moves at yesterday's close.
Gains were widespread but it was the dramatic moves by the Finnish stocks which caught the eye.
Data services firm Novo Group surged nearly 51 per cent after it announced an electronic commerce acquisition and forecast quadrupled net sales by 2003. It said it would continue to make acquisitions in pursuit of its growth strategy targeted on quadrupling net sales by 2003.
Rival data services group Aldata rose 38.5 per cent after saying it had signed a software deal with Sweden's alcohol monopoly.
Analysts said trading volumes were extremely thin right across Europe helping several national indices to end their trading year at record levels. "It's almost all private clients," said one analyst.
"The professionals have squared their books for the year and are staying away so volumes are extremely thin," he added.
The rarefied trading atmosphere lifted Amsterdam's AEX to record levels, while indices in Frankfurt, Madrid and Milan were within a whisker of their top figures reached earlier this week.
At a close, thinned-out by early finishing on several markets, the broad-based pan-European FTSE Eurotop 300, was up 1.35 per cent, just off the intraday high, and the narrower Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 was up 2.03 per cent to a new record 4,904.46.
There were sturdy advances also for Europe's largest share by market capitalisation Nokia, up 6.20 per cent, and Sweden's Ericsson up 2.82 per cent, both after broker Paine-Webber released bullish comments about Qualcomm.
France Telecom ended up 3.79 per cent and Deutsche Telekom was up over 4.27 per cent, while French services provider Equant also outperformed with a 5.13 per cent gain.
In London, Energis plc ended with a 3.84 per cent gain.
Among the consumer cyclical stocks, British American Tobacco gained 4.44 per cent on the back of major tobacco companies calling on a US federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit seeking billions of dollars in healthcare costs.
Shares in rivals Gallaher Group and Imperial Tobacco closed up 7 per cent and 0.99 per cent respectively.
Basic industrial and chemical issues also benefited from the rotation through the less fashionable sectors. Chemical company shares were up overall led by Germany's Bayer AG closing up 2.06 per cent followed by advances of 1.78 per cent for France's Air Liquide and 1.29 per cent for Britain's BOC Group.
