Global shares and the euro surged Friday
after a breakthrough deal at a European Union summit in Brussels on
the use of bailout funds to assist struggling banks and stabilize
debt markets.
By late afternoon trading, the eurozone's blue-chip Stoxx 50 index
had raced ahead by 3.78 per cent to 2,239.28 points, helped along by
big gains in the region's two key bourses, in Paris and Frankfurt.
The euphoria created by the agreement in Brussels spread across
the Atlantic to New York, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average
jumped by 1.40 per cent to 12,777 points shortly after opening for
its final session of the week.
In the meantime, the euro soared 1.83 per cent to 1.2668 dollars
on the deal, which aims to ease pressure on Spain's and Italy's
borrowing costs.
The results were nearly instantaneous as the yields on Spanish and
Italian 10-year bonds fell to 6.6 per cent and 5.84 per cent
respectively.
As the trading week came to an end in Europe, shares in Madrid had
gained 3.8 per cent, while those in Milan had gained 4.5 per cent.
Helping to spearhead the gains in shares were big jumps in banking
stocks. While shares in Germany's biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, were
up more than 6 per cent, BNP Paris's stock was up more than 8 per
cent.
