Alstom leads European gains

European stocks staged a broad rebound on Thursday with the banking sector leading the gains, while French engineer Alstom reported strong sales growth.

In early trade the FRST Eurofirst 300 was up 1.3 per cent to 1,400.93, Frankfurt's Xetra Dax added 0.9 per cent to 7,537.04, the CAC 40 in Paris gained 0.9 per cent to 5,274.89 and London's FTSE 100 climbed 1.4 per cent to 6,022.9.

French engineering group Alstom led the pack after reporting better-than-expected third-quarter sales, up 20 per cent, and confirming its forecasts for its full financial year.

The company, which builds power stations and railways, said the third quarter included new orders of EU4.7bn for its Power Systems division. The shares rose 6.5 per cent to EU136.80.

Retailers received some welcome cheer after Dutch supermarkets group Super De Boer said consumer spending was strong over Christman and that it had seen no signs of a consumer slowdown. The company reported a 4 per cent rise in like-for-like sales in its fourth quarter.

Super De Boer rose 7.4 per cent to EU2.90, while larger domestic rival Ahold climbed 4.9 per cent to EU8.18.

Belgian supermarket operator Delhaize, which makes most of its revenues in the US, climbed 3.2 per cent to EU51.01 after its drop in fourth-quarter sales was no worse than expected. Like-for-like, the group reported 3.7 per cent sales growth in the US, and 1.3 per cent in Belgium.

Technology stocks bounced after Wednesday's losses, with Infineon (NYSE:IFX), the German chipmaker, recovering after US rival Intel reported quarterly profits that lagged expectations. Infineon climbed 6.5 per cent to EU6.86, Franco-Italian rival STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) rose 3.2 per cent to EU8.44 and Dutch chip manufacturing equipment maker ASML (NASDAQ:ASML) gained 2.9 per cent to EU17.69.

Alcatel (NYSE:ALA)-Lucent, the telecoms equipment maker, rose 5.8 per cent to EU4.78 after it said it had won a Brazilian network services contract.

But the banking sector provided the biggest weight behind the gains as relief swept over the sector after JPMorgan on Wednesday reported a relatively small writedown related to its subprime exposure.

UBS (NYSE:UBS), the Swiss bank, rose 1.8 per cent to SFr47.60 after it announced domestic rival Credit Suisse (NYSE:CSR) now held 3.275 per cent of its voting rights. Credit Suisse rose 2 per cent to SFr60.60.