Wednesday August 5, 08:42 AM
European shares rise early, SocGen boosts banks
FRANKFURT, Aug 5 (Reuters) - European shares rose in early trade on Wednesday, having briefly been in negative territory, as banks were boosted by results from Societe Generale (Paris: FR0000130809 - news) ahead of key U.S. data later in the day.
At 0723 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was 0.2 percent higher at 941.97 points. The index, which plunged 45 percent in 2008, is up 45 percent since falling to a lifetime low in early March.
'The market continues to be in a phase of cooling down a bit and the clear focus today will be on macroeconomic data in the United States later in the day,' said said Commerzbank (Xetra: 803200 - news) 's chief strategist, Hans-Juergen Delp.
'As we have seen yesterday, company earnings only seem to play a vital role when they massively exceed or miss expectations,' he added.
French Bank Societe Generale rose 4.4 percent, after the company's second-quarter profits beat expectations. .
Banks added most points to the index and the DJ STOXX European Banks Index was 1.1 percent higher.
AXA (Paris: FR0000120628 - news) , too, rose 4.5 percent after Europe's second-biggest insurer by market capitalisation, posted a smaller-than-expected decline in first-half earnings.
Across Europe, UK's FTSE 100 index, Germany's DAX (Xetra: news) and France's CAC 40 (Paris: news) were 0.03-0.5 percent higher.
(Reporting by Christoph Steitz) Keywords: MARKETS EUROPE STOCKS/OPEN
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