LONDON (AFP) - European stock markets edged ahead in early deals, recovering some of the previous day's losses as strong company results on both sides of the Atlantic helped boost sentiment.
The London FTSE 100 index inched up 0.03 percent to 4,771.90 points on Wednesday, while the Frankfurt DAX rose 0.23 percent to 4,126.70 points and the Paris CAC 40 climbed 0.16 percent to 3,800.50 points.
The euro climbed to a new record high level of 1.3036 dollars, exceeding a previous all-time summit of 1.3005 dollars scaled last week.
In New York, the major share indices ended lower Tuesday on concern the US Federal Reserve may look to raise interest rates at a faster pace to clip inflation after wholesale prices surged in October.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.59 percent at 10,487.65 points, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 0.74 percent to 2,078.62.
The broad-market Standard and Poor's 500 index fell 0.71 percent to 1,175.43 points.
After tracking US shares lower in late trading on Tuesday, European stocks clawed back in the wake of better-than-expected after-hours results from IT giant Hewlett-Packard and network storage firm Network Appliance.
In London, investors welcomed news that mmO2 will pay a maiden dividend at the end of the current financial year, the start of a distribution policy that will see it return half of its profits to shareholders.
The news came alongside better-than-expected interim results, which showed pretax profits soared to 239 million pounds (341 million euros, 444 million dollars) in the six months to September from 26 million a year earlier.
MmO2 shares rose 4.72 percent to 111 pence.
Shares in J Sainsbury, Britain's third-biggest grocer, gained 0.19 percent to 269.75 pence after the group reported its first ever pretax loss of 39 million pounds (56 million euros, 72 million dollars) for the 28 weeks to October, against a profit of 323 million in the same period of 2003.
Before exceptional items and certain financial items, half-year pretax profits fell to 131 million pounds from 366 million a year earlier, in line with market expectations, which have been slashed after three profit-warnings from the retailer this year.
Shares in French media and mobile telephone group Vivendi Universal fell 1.21 percent to 22.11 euros in Paris despite the group reporting a sixfold jump in third-quarter net profits to 776 million euros (1.01 billion dollars)
The company also upgraded its full-year profit outlook owing to a change in tax arrangements.
11/17/2004 - 12:29 GMT - AFP