LONDON: European stock markets closed higher Tuesday, with Frankfurt's DAX 30 touching a fresh record a day after it breached the 10,000 mark for the first time.
The German index continued its winning streak to gain 0.20 percent to 10,028.80 points, while the CAC 40 in Paris ended the day at its highest point since June 2008 up 0.13 percent at 4,595 points.
London's FTSE 100 index of top companies closed flat at 6,873.55 points.
"Overall sentiment continues to remain positive and with new economic data flow increasing as the week progresses this might just turn out to be a much needed breather," said Markus Huber, senior analyst at brokers Peregrine & Black.
In foreign exchange trading on Tuesday, the European single currency fell to $1.3542 from $1.3592 late in New York on Monday.
The euro slipped to 80.84 British pence from 80.90 pence. The British pound fell to $1.6768 from $1.6799 on Monday. On the London Bullion Market, gold prices edged up to $1,259.50 from $1,253.50 on Monday evening.
Official data on Tuesday showed that industrial output across Britain rose by 0.4 percent in April from March. Manufacturing output which excludes mining and quarrying, electricity, gas and water supply grew also by 0.4 percent in April.
"April's industrial production figures added to the growing body of evidence suggesting that the economic recovery (in Britain) might have gathered even more pace in the second quarter,"said Samuel Tombs, senior economist at research group Capital Economics.
On the corporate front, shares in Imperial Tobacco gained 0.77 percent to 2,623 pence after the maker of Lambert & Butler and Gauloises cigarettes said it planned to spin off Logista, its European distribution and logistics unit, in an initial public offering on the Spanish stock market.
Asia mostly up:
In Paris, shares in Gemalto, which provides digital security services, jumped 1.98 percent to 83.58 euros on being chosen by China Telecom to equip telephones with chips for touchless payments.
Shares in Technicolor on the SFB 120 secondary market jumped 4.6 percent to 5.69 euros after the company said it was buying Canadian animated special effects company Mr. X.
Asian stock markets ended mostly higher on Tuesday following fresh records on Wall Street, while Shanghai and Hong Kong advanced after data showed Chinese inflation surged in May.
US stocks opened lower Tuesday, after a record winning streak, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipping 0.06 percent and tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index falling 0.15 percent.
Official data last Friday showed the US economy added 217,000 jobs in May, bringing the total number in the country above the level at the beginning of the deep 2008-2009 recession for the first time.
Also last week, the European Central Bank pushed the rate at which it pays commercial banks for depositing their unused cash into negative territory for the first time, cutting it from zero percent to minus 0.10 percent.
This means banks will be charged for depositing their excess cash with the ECB in a bid to encourage lending, and the central bank said it would also make up to 400 billion euros in cheap long-term funds available to eurozone lenders.
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