Carmakers: RNO follows Fiat higher

As London’s equities markets remained closed for a public holiday, European markets saw gains Monday after Italian carmaker Fiat (BIT: F) announced a plan to buy into troubled US carmaker General Motors (NYSE: GM).

Fiat’s shares were up 8.1 percent on the plan to take over GM’s European operations, just a few days after it agreed to buy into Chrysler, which filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States last week.

The news left the rest of the European automobile manufacturing sector mixed as Renault (Euronext: RNO) added 6.84 percent and truck maker Man (FWB: EDF1) was up 7.02 percent but Volkswagen (FWB: VOW) dropped 1.77 percent.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 was up 1.48 percent to 841.94 while the IBEX added 0.41 percent to 9,074.7, the CAC-40 was 2.47 percent higher to 3,237.97 and the Dax gained 2.79 to 4,902.45.

Some travel-related companies saw gains after last week’s troubles as it was feared that flu concerns would make travelers stay home.

Hotels operator Accor (Euronext: AC) was up 5.77 percent while Air France-KLM (Euronext: AF; NYSE: AKH) led gainers on the CAC-40 with a gain of 8.51 percent.

Over on the Dax, the biggest winner of the day was steel-maker ThyssenKrupp (FWB: TKA; LSE: THK), which added 8.31 percent while elsewhere in the steel sector Salzgitter (FWB: SZG) gained 6.84 percent.

There were declines in the telecommunications sector as Deutsche Telekom (FWB: DTE; LSE: DEU; NYSE: DT; TYO: 9496) turned in the worst performance of the session on the Dax with a decline of 7.66 percent, while France Telecom (Euronext: FTE; NYSE: FTE) dropped 0.83 percent.

Schneider Electric (Euronext: SU) was down 4.13 percent as the worst performer of the day on the CAC-40.

Markets in the Asia-Pacific region were significantly higher on optimism that trade and manufacturing in the region could be starting to recover.

The Kospi added 2.09 percent to 1,397.92 in South Korea, while in Australia the Sydney Ordinaries gained 2.89 percent to 3,846 and the S&P/ASX200 was up 3.01 percent to 3,883.

The Shanghai Composite was up 3.32 percent to 2,559.91, the Hang Seng added 5.54 percent to 16,381.05, and the Taiex was 5.64 percent higher to 6,330.4 on continuing hopes that new rules will entice mainland Chinese investment in Taiwan.

In Singapore, the Straits Times Index was up 5.65 percent to 2,028.71 while India’s Sensex gained 6.41 percent to 12,134.75.

Tokyo’s markets remained closed for a holiday.

Wall Street saw gains in midday trade as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 were each 1.85 percent higher at just past 12:30 p.m., to 8,364.3 and 893.77 respectively, while the Nasdaq Composite had added 1.41 percent to 1,743.38.

New York markets were helped by data from the National Association of Realtors showing that pending sales of existing homes in the US were up 3.2 percent in March.

Also helping were expectations that the news will be primarily good on Thursday when the US government releases the results of its “stress test” to gauge the health of banks there.

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