BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - European stocks are up sharply around noon on Tuesday, rebounding strongly thanks to some hectic bargain hunting after recent losses.
Investors, shrugging off concerns about Chinese realty major Evergrande's debt woes for now, are looking ahead to the policy meetings of the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England.
While the Fed's two-day monetary policy meeting gets underway today, the ECB is scheduled to announce its policy on Thursday.
The Fed is widely expected to leave monetary policy unchanged but could address the outlook for its asset purchase program. The minutes of the Fed's last meeting signaled the central bank was prepared to begin scaling back asset purchases by the end of the year.
With some recent disappointing economic data suggesting the Fed could push back its plans, traders are likely to pay close attention to the wording of the post-meeting statement.
Markets are reacting positively to the OECD's economic outlook report showing the Euro Area economy will likely grow 5.3% this year. The earlier projection was for a 4.3% expansion.
Mining and energy shares are among the top gainers.
The pan European Stoxx 600 is gaining 1.04%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 is surging up 1.21%, Germany's DAX is climbing 1.5% and France's CAC 40 is up by about 1.4%.
In the UK market, Pershing Square Holdings is climbing 5.5%. Royal Dutch Shell is up nearly 5% and BP is up 2.8%.
Antofagasta, IAG, Rolls-Royce Holdings, BHP Group, BT Group, Prudential, IHG, Aviva, Barclays Group, Glencore and Ashtead Group are among the other major gainers.
Kingfisher is down more than 5% despite reporting a surge in first-half earnings.
In the German market, Volkswagen, BMW, Porsche Automobil, Siemens, Allianz, BASF, Infineon Technologies, Henkel and Vonovia are gaining 2 to 3%.
In France, Accor, Air France-KLM, Capgemini, BNP Paribas, Saint Gobain, Teleperformance, LVMH, Technip, Air Liquide, Schneider Electric and Essilor are rising 1.7 to 3.3%.
Universal Music Group's shares soared this morning, as owner Vivendi spun off the record label in the biggest European listing of the year.
In economic news, the UK budget posted its second highest deficit on record for the month of August, data published by the Office for National Statistics showed.
Public sector net borrowing, excluding public sector banks, totaled GBP 20.5 billion in August 2021. This was the second-highest August borrowing since monthly records began in 1993. Nonetheless, this was GBP 5.5 billion less than in August 2020.
UK manufacturing orders grew the most on record in September, with the order book balance rising to 22% in the month from 18% in August, survey data published by the Confederation of British Industry showed on Tuesday.
This was the strongest growth in orders since April 1977.
At the same time, the export order book balance advanced to -2%, the highest since March 2019, from -16% in August.
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