European stocks rose this morning in subdued trade with technology stocks such as Alcatel and Nokia a positive feature as Nasdaq gains helped them bounce back from yesterday's weakness.
In early morning trading, the FTSE Eurotop 300 index was up 0.8 per cent at 990 points. The narrower Euro Stoxx 50 index gained 1.8 per cent to 2,821 points.
Swiss industrial engineering group ABB saw its shares up 3.7 per cent on expectation it will announce an asset sale later this week to help cut debt.
Zurich Financial gained 3 per cent on continued talk the Swiss insurer is a takeover target, although firmer share markets helped insurers generally. But British supermarket chain Tesco fell 2 per cent after a downgrade by UBS Warburg.
Dealers said the market's advance was due to an absence of major bad news and that strong gains would be difficult to sustain given little corporate news. US economic numbers due later could offer some guidance.
July US durable goods orders are due at 1:30 p.m, with a rise of 1.2 per cent forecast in the headline figure after a 4.1 per cent drop in the prior month. US. consumer confidence for August is due at 3.00 p.m.
Investors want reassurance that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover fast enough to bolster profits and maintain and build on the stock market's recent recovery.