A woman checks her phone at the headquarters of ChemChina in Beijing. Pirelli’s share price jumped 3.5% yesterday after ChemChina reached a deal that will give it a controlling stake in the Italian tyre maker.

AFP/London


European stocks were mixed yesterday as Greece’s premier arrived in Berlin for more talks aimed at resolving the country’s debt crisis, while London briefly hit another record peak before pulling lower.
London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index soared as high as 7,027.33 points in morning deals, extending its recent record run on a wave of investor optimism over the economic outlook. It closed at 7,037.67 points, up 0.22% from Friday’s close.
In the eurozone, Frankfurt’s DAX 30 index slumped 1.19% to 11,895.84 points and the CAC 40 in Paris dipped 0.65% to 5,054.52.
Also yesterday, the European Central Bank said it bought €26.3bn ($28.7bn) worth of bonds under its controversial quantitative easing programme within the first 10 days.
ECB President Mario Draghi told a hearing of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs that the central bank was “on track” to meet its stated goal of a total €60bn in bond purchases per month through September 2016.
In company news, Pirelli’s share price jumped 3.5% in early trading yesterday after Chinese state firm ChemChina reached a deal that will give it a controlling stake in the Italian tyre maker.
ChemChina confirmed it had agreed to pay €15 per share for Camfin’s 26.2% stake in the tyremaker and plans to make a tender offer to other investors for their shares.
Pirelli shares closed up 0.38% to €15.50 on Milan’s FTSE Mib, which was down 0.52% overall.
In foreign exchange activity, the European single currency rose to $1.0932 from $1.0821 late on Friday in New York.
The dollar continued to struggle after the US Federal Reserve dampened expectations for an early interest rate hike last week, analysts said.
“Expectations of a June interest rate increase were a key driver of the bull market in the dollar over the last three months, but last week’s Fed meeting injected some uncertainty into the exact timing of rate increases,” noted CurrenciesDirect dealer Alistair Cotton.
US stocks were mixed yesterday as drug maker Gilead Sciences and agricultural products giant Monsanto both fell.
At mid-day in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 18,176.49, up 0.27%.
The broad-based S&P 500 added 0.13% to 2,110.76, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.09% to 5,021.93.
Gilead Sciences dropped 2.0% in early trade on news that it issued a warning about its hepatitis drugs after nine patients had suffered abnormally slow heartbeats and one patient had died.
Monsanto fell 1.7% early Monday after the UN International Agency for Research on Cancer said the company’s popular weedkiller Roundup is “probably” carcinogenic.