Europe close: Stocks end sharply higher, tech and oil issues lead
Stocks held onto their big early gains after news that US health regulators had cleared a potentially key treatment for Covid-19, convalescent plasma, for emergency use and might do something similar with the vaccine being developed by Oxford University.
"Tech stocks have rallied straight out of the gate this afternoon, but it is the UK and Europe that are seeing the biggest gains," said IG chief market analyst, Chris Beauchamp.
"Investors have been keen to pile into European stocks due to their laggard status, hoping that some of the magic dust that has been sprinkled on US equities (and on tech stocks in particular) will rub off on the lacklustre indices on this side of the Atlantic."
Also at the weekend, negotiators from the European Union and US agreed on a mini trade deal around US lobster fishermen, potentially paving the way for more such deals.
By the end of trading, the pan-European Stoxx 600 was 1.58% higher to 370.85 alongside a 2.36% jump for the German Dax to 13,066.54.
In parallel, the Cac-40 added 2.28% to 5,007.89, while the FTSE Mibtel was adding 2.12% to 20,113.36.
The US Food and Drug administration's decision to allow 'emergency use' of convalescent plasma kicked-off a lively debate on Monday, due to the lack of placebo-controlled trials proving its efficacy and with some alleging that the FDA's decision had been rushed.
Yet some of the available literature indicated that it was the only treatment that had proven useful during the 1918 epidemic and, on 31 July, the European Commission dubbed the result of research into the efficacy of convalescent plasma as "promising", adding that full clinical trial results would be "forthcoming".
Cyclical areas of the market were topping gains, with the Stoxx 600 sector sub-index for Oil and Gas climbing 3.4% to 213.25, alongside big gains for Technology, Autos&Parts and Technology.
Helping Technology, strategists at JP Morgan told clients: "We remain skeptical with respect to the rotation call, and keep our long-standing OW Tech stance, which we held through the whole of this year and throughout 2019."
Stock in Zurich Airport was near the top of the leaderboard for the Stoxx 600 on the back of slightly higher than expected first half results.
Travel and Leisure issues on the other hand were conspicuously weaker, drifting lower by 0.09% to 175.78.
Dragging on Travel&Leisure names, Sunday saw France report 4,897 Covid-19 cases, the worst tally since mid-April, while the 1,210 seen in Italy were the most since mid-May, Jim Reid at Deutsche Bank pointed out.
Pushing crude oil futures higher were disruptions to US output linked to the approach of two storms, Marco and Laura.
Front-dated Brent meanwhile was last adding 1.6% to $45.07 a barrel on the ICE.
Euro/dollar on the other hand reversed early gains and was dipping by 0.01% to 1.1796.