Europe close: Shares start week off with a bounce
Stocks on the Continent bounced back from the steep losses endured over the course of the prior week, tracking a similar move seen on Wall Street last Friday and helped by some positive news on the global trade front.
At the end of the previous week, the US President had doused expectations for a meeting with his Chinese counterpart before the 1 March deadline for 10% tariffs on $200bn-worth of goods to be jacked-up to 25%.
However, late in the session, reports citing senior US officials said that deadline might be moved back and on Monday morning, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Hua Chunying, said China believed a resolution of trade frictions through dialogue was in both countries' best interest.
Hua was speaking soon after two US Navy vessels had sailed past an island in the South China Sea which Beijing claims as its own, including the territorial waters around it.
By the end of trading, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was up by 0.85% or 3.05 points at 361.12, alongside an advance of 1.21% or 234.66 points to 19,586.56 on the FTSE Mibtel.
Germany's Dax meanwhile was 0.99% or 107.81 points higher to 11,014.59.
Spain's Ibex 35 was also higher, adding 0.90% to 8,936.40, despite reports in Spanish daily El Mundo, citing government sources, that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was mulling calling a general election for 14 April given the impasse in approving the annual budget.
Meanwhile, in France, the central bank's industrial confidence index fell from a reading of 102 for December to 99 in January (Consensus: 103.0).
According to Banque de France, its lead indicator for the economy was pointing to a pace of GDP expansion of 0.4% over the first three months of 2019.