The French market is in positive territory in afternoon trading Tuesday, even as debt concerns continued to haunt investor sentiment. The Asian markets mostly fell as relief over the bailout for Spanish banks gave way to skepticism.
The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone bluechip stocks is adding 0.85 percent, while the Stoxx Europe 50 index, which includes some major U.K. companies, is gaining 0.83 percent.
The CAC 40 index is adding 0.44 percent.
GDF Suez is gaining 2 percent and France Telecom is adding 1.7 percent.
Lafarge is rising 1.2 percent. The cement giant unveiled plans aimed at driving growth in sales, cash generation and return on capital through 2015, including cost savings of 1.30 billion euros and EBITDA improvement of at least 450 million euros.
Among lenders, BNP Paribas is flat while Societe Generale is down 0.2 percent and Credit Agricole is falling 1 percent. Insurer Axa is losing 1.1 percent.
Air France-KLM is up 0.3 percent. HSBC initiated the stock with an "Overweight" rating.
Peugeot is losing 2.9 percent and Renault is falling 0.8 percent.
PPR, Vallourec, STMicroelectronics and Technip are making notable losses.
Elsewhere in Europe, the German DAX is advancing 0.64 percent and the UK's FTSE 100 is gaining 0.40 percent. Switzerland's SMI is rising 0.37 percent.
In economic news, U.K. manufacturing output dipped 0.7 percent month-on-month in April, reversing March's 0.9 percent rise, the Office for National Statistics said. The decline far exceeded economists' forecast of 0.1 percent fall.
Across Asia/Pacific, most major markets ended lower. China's Shanghai Composite Index declined 0.70 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.4 percent and Japan's Nikkei 225 retreated 1 percent. However, bucking the trend, Australia's All Ordinaries added 0.2 percent as trading resumed after a holiday yesterday.
In the U.S., futures point to a higher open on Wall Street. In the previous session, stocks finished sharply lower as optimism about an aid package to Spain gave way early in the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1.1 percent, the S&P 500 retreated 1.3 percent and the Nasdaq fell 1.7 percent.
In the commodity space, crude for July delivery is sliding $0.33 to $82.37 per barrel and August gold is falling $6.4 to $1590.4 a troy ounce.
by RTT Staff Writer
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