On the back of the Australian poll results that denied any possibility of developing a plan for a new mining tax, European stocks rose marginally higher on the first day of the week. Mining shares were boosted up by this news and helped promoting the Stoxx Europe 600 index that went up by 0.2% at 252.57 on Monday in the mid-afternoon trade.
The federal elections that were held in Australia on Saturday gave extremely shaky results impacting the mining tax decision. Mining has a strong presence in the rural areas of Australia. These rural areas have critical independent seats and thus, play a major role in shaping the final outcome of the poll. The mining super-tax plan would be dropped to settle the rural votes.
Meanwhile, shares of HSBC went up by 0.3% and Old Mutual stocks gained by 4.5% on the benchmark index after HSBC’s declaration of partaking in acquiring Old Mutual's majority stake in Nedbank, South Africa's fourth-largest banking group by total assets. According to investors, this move was strategically important for HSBC; however, they preferred to remain passive till the results could show positivity.
Nonetheless, the overall performance of the European markets was dragged by the weak global cues and gains achieved by the relatively brighter stocks did not create any scope for the market to make much headway.
In the European foreign exchanges, the dollar was mixed early Monday. The euro was trading at $1.2702 at 0815 GMT, down from $1.2712 late in New York Friday. But the dollar was quoted at Y85.37, down from Y85.62.
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