Europe open: Shares motor on back of Asia, Wall St, Renault results

European shares opened higher on Friday as Asia and Wall Street provided impetus along with solid corporate results in France.

The pan-Europe Stoxx 600 index opened 0.53% higher at 376.51, while France's CAC-40 was up 1.1% at 5,222 points. All other major bourses were in the black.

Asian shares rose for a fifth straight day on Friday as investors dipped their toes back in the water after heavy selling earlier this month, while Wall Street booked a hat-trick of rises for the week.

“Traders are quickly getting used to higher bond yields, higher inflation and another round of hikes in global interest rates that will follow, so much so that US stocks are recovering twice as fast as in London,” said Lee Wild, head of equity strategy at interactive investor.

“Markets will remain volatile, for sure, but we’ve just found out that big investors can’t stay out of this market for long, and demand for equities typically picks up in the weeks before tax year-end.”

In corporate news, Renault shares were up as the company said 2017 net profit motored in 2017 due to higher volumes and market share and a one-off benefit from US tax cuts.

EDF shares were up as the company said posted a rise in 2017 profits.

Segro rose after The FTSE 100 firm said pre-tax profit was up 25.7% to £194.2m, which the board put down to its focus on customer and portfolio management delivering high customer retention rates, like-for-like rental growth and a low vacancy rate.

Vivendi shares fell 3% despite reporting a massive jump in fourth quarter profits to €828m profits from €81m a year earlier.