LONDON (Reuters) – European equities extended the previous session’s strong rally on Friday, tracking gains on Wall Street and in Asia, with stronger metals prices and some encouraging company updates supporting the market.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index (.FTEU3) was up 1.3 percent in early trading after closing 2 percent higher in the previous session. The index headed for its second positive week in a row.
Miners topped the leaderboard, with the STOXX Europe 600 Basic Resources index (.SXPP) gaining 2.4 following sharp gains in the prices of key industrial metals such as copper (CMCU3) and aluminium (CMAL3).
The market was also helped by company updates, with Spain’s Amadeus (AMA.MC) gaining 6.3 percent, the top riser in the FTSEurofirst 300 index, after saying it was targeting a dividend pay out of 50 percent of reported profits in 2016.
However, state-backed Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) (RBS.L) slumped 7.8 percent after reporting its eighth straight full-year loss of 1.97 billion pounds ($ 2.75 billion), as it continued to be weighed down by restructuring and litigation costs.
(Reporting by Atul Prakash; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)
