6:30AM Oil, banks and telecoms help Europe reverse into profit.
European markets rose by mid morning. London’s FTSE 100 recouped 0.5% to 5,679.5 , Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax edged up 0.2% to 5,633.39 and the CAC 40 in Paris added 0.1% to 4,896.27. On the corporate front, the telecom sector performed robustly. France Telecom rose 2.3% and Dutch operator KPN advanced 1.6%. Telecom Italia gained 1.6% while Spain’s Telefonica climbed 1.5%. Steel shares remained closely watched, as Corus, the Anglo-Dutch group, posted quarterly earnings below a year-ago level. The company announced that good results will be seen in the next six months. In other news from the sector, the much-talked-about merger of Arcelor with Severstal prompted investors into considering legal action to make Severstal launch a full bid for Arcelor.

Crude oil for July delivery slipped 4 cents to $71.99 a barrel by 0710 GMT, a day after prices advanced 66 cents to their highest close in two-and-a-half weeks on oil demand from China. Brent crude remained unchanged at $71.05 a barrel.The euro gained against the dollar. In morning European trading the euro bought $1.2873, up from $1.2865 the evening before in New York. The dollar slipped to purchase 111.97 Japanese yen from 112.17 the day before, while the British pound advanced slightly to $1.8837 from $1.8829 in New York.

5:00AM Gold and silver advanced due to weak dollar.
August gold finished $3.10 higher at $660.50 an ounce on NYME. Earlier in the trading the contract reached $671.50 an ounce. July silver closed 34 cents higher at $13.07 an ounce after hitting a session high of $13.36 an ounce. July platinum settled down $6.70 at $1,291.40 an ounce, while September palladium ended up $2.10 at $362.65 an ounce. The most-traded July copper contract dropped 14.10 cents to $3.6740 per pound.

July crude oil contract finished 66 cents higher at $72.03 a barrel, after advancing to $72.75 a barrel. June gasoline put up 1.31 cent to $2.1499 a gallon, off its prior high of $2.19 a gallon. On the New York Board of Trade, July Arabica coffee finished 0.65 cent up at 98.75 cents a pound. July futures for raw sugar in foreign ports added 0.03 cent higher at 15.91 cents a pound.