(Reuters) – European stocks scaled on Tuesday to their highest levels in more than a week, driven by the technology sector as investors found comfort in upbeat corporate earnings, while UK’s FTSE 100 Index climbed to hit an all-time peak.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index was up 0.6%, as of 0712 GMT, boosted by a nearly 2% jump in technology shares.
Helping the tech sector’s rise was a 4.6% gain in SAP after the German company reported a 24% jump in first-quarter cloud revenue at 3.93 billion euros ($4.19 billion), buoyed by demand for its enterprise resource planning software.
Shares of Novartis added 4.6% as the Swiss drugmaker raised its full-year outlook after reporting first-quarter results that surpassed expectations.
On the flip side, Randstad, the world’s biggest employment agency, reported disappointing quarterly core earnings, sending shares of the Dutch firm down 6.7% to the bottom of the STOXX.
Later in the day, investors will parse April euro zone purchasing manufacturer’s data, that could shed light on the state of the currency union’s economic health.
Elsewhere, UK’s exporter-focused FTSE 100 climbed 0.6% to notch an all-time high of 8,071.96 points.
(Reporting by Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
