European shares rise in early trading on energy and miners then pull back (12-02-2008)

European shares advanced on Tuesday morning, boosted by energy related and mining stocks, but gave up early gains as Credit Suisse announced lower than expected profits for the 4rth quarter.

By 0929 GMT, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was up 0.13 percent at 1,292.54 points, after the index had risen to as high as 1,304.52 points earlier in the session.

Oil sector leaders BP and Royal Dutch Shell rose more than 1.4% each as the light sweet crude oil contract managed to stay near recent highs. The contract was recently down 58 cents at $93.01 a barrel.

Also, bid speculation gave miners BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto a bit of a boost after BHP Billiton said it's prepared to be patient over its bid for Rio Tinto.

BHP Billiton shares moved up 1.2%, while Rio Tinto shares climbed 1.4%.

However, shares in Swiss mining giant Xstrata dropped 2.1% in London trading after a report in that Financial Times that the firm has rejected a $76 billion bid from Brazil's Vale.

Technology firms were also doing well in Europe, with shares of business software giant SAP up 1.3% and shares of Nokia, the world's top mobile-phone maker, up 1.3%.

Credit Suisse fell 3.4 percent after the Swiss bank said it trimmed its full-year write-downs linked to the subprime crisis to 2.0 billion Swiss francs ($1.82 billion), but also reported a 49 percent fall in fourth-quarter net profit, slightly below analysts' expectations.

ING was the top percentage loser in Europe, sliding 5.3 percent on market talk of large write-down's linked to U.S. real estate. No immediate comment was available from the bank.

Also, shares in French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis moved up 0.9% after it reported a rise in fourth-quarter adjusted net profit to 1.46 billion Euros ($2.1 billion), from 1.38 billion Euros, which was just ahead of analyst forecasts for a profit of 1.42 billion Euros.

Source: Reuters - MarketWatch