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* Oil stocks down as major players warn of sliding demand
* Global mood supported by COVID-19 vaccine updates
* Chip stocks rise on $40 bln Nvidia-Arm deal
(Updates to market close)
By Sruthi Shankar
Sept 14 (Reuters) - Europe's STOXX 600 inched higher on
Monday as surging travel and technology stocks helped counter
losses in the energy sector, with investors focused on
Brexit-related developments and central bank actions later this
week.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index closed 0.2% higher
after rising as much as 0.8% earlier in the session.
Much of those gains were lost as oil majors Total,
BP and Royal Dutch Shell dropped after major
industry figures said damage to the global economy from the
coronavirus pandemic will hollow out demand for oil more than
previously thought.
Markets had rallied earlier on news that AstraZeneca
had resumed clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine after being
suspended last week.
The British drugmaker's shares slipped amid losses
for the healthcare sector, but battered travel and leisure
stocks led the gains in Europe, with British
Airways-owner IAG jumping 4.4%, and easyJet and
Lufthansa rising nearly 2%.
Europe's tech sector rose 0.9%, with chipmakers
STMicroelectronics, AMS and ASM International
up between 0.9% and 3.7%.
U.S. chipmaker Nvidia Corp said it would buy
UK-based chip designer Arm from Japan's SoftBank Group
for as much as $40 billion in a deal set to reshape the global
semiconductor landscape.
Still euro zone stocks were up just 0.1% and UK's
FTSE 100 down 0.1%, with gains for both the euro and
sterling hurting the exporters.
"It appears to be becoming much more difficult to separate
the optimism around the chatter about progress on a vaccine,
with the economic reality that tighter restrictions are likely
to curtail the current rebound in economic activity across the
bloc," CMC Market's Michael Hewson wrote in a note.
Investors waited for UK lawmakers to vote on a bill which
the European Union has told London to scrap, raising pessimism
over the chances of a Brexit deal being reached before the
December 2020 deadline.
Focus was also on this week's U.S. Federal Reserve meeting,
its first since Chairman Jerome Powell unveiled a policy shift
toward greater tolerance of inflation.
Britain's G4S soared 25.1% after saying that it had
rejected a 2.95 billion pound ($3.8 billion) offer from Canadian
security firm GardaWorld, saying it was "highly opportunistic".
Exchange operators were caught in a bidding war, with
France's Euronext and Deutsche Boerse down
2.5% and 1.3% after sources told Reuters that Switzerland's Six
made the highest bid in the battle for Borsa Italiana.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; editing by
Uttaresh.V)
