European stocks were higher this morning after an upbeat assessment of the US economy by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and strong results from Ericsson and Essilor in Europe.
By mid-morning, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 was up 0.4 per cent to 1,168.08, while Frankfurt's Xetra Dax added 0.9 per cent to 4,825.49. In Paris, the CAC-40 climbed 0.4 per cent to 4,437.75 and London's FTSE 100 gained 0.5 per cent to 5,239.5.
Although the Fed chairman offered no new clues as to how far and how quickly US interest rates had to rise, his opinion of the strength of the world's largest economy was enough to lift Wall Street stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.4 per cent higher at 10,689.15, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.7 per cent to 2,188.57.
Oil prices fell overnight after US stockpiles were shown to have suffered less than feared at the hands of recent hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. Nymex West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, fell below $58 a barrel in early electronic trade.
In Europe, following falls in the previous session due to disappointment from Motorola of the United States, mobile handset makers Ericsson and Nokia were in the spotlight again as both were due to report second-quarter earnings.
Ericsson was first up, beating forecasts with quarterly pre-tax profit and sales, and raising its assessment of growth in the full year.