Paris - European stocks rose early on Monday, bouncing back from last week's losses with tech shares rallying after merger talks in the sector spurred a late-session rally on Wall Street on Friday.
Shares in Infineon, STMicroelectronics, ARM and ASML were up 2.3 percent to 3.2 percent.
US tech stocks climbed on Friday after news that Intel is in talks to buy fellow chipmaker Altera in a deal likely to top $10 billion. Intel shares jumped 6.4 percent while Altera shares surged 28.4 percent.
Shares in French cement group Lafarge bucked the trend on Monday, down 2 percent after two shareholders of its Swiss merger partner Holcim appeared unhappy with revised deal terms that were designed to placate them. Holcim shares were up 0.3 percent.
Shares in Italy's World Duty Free sank 8.1 percent after Swiss group Dufry offered 10.25 euros a share to buy the travel retailer, below Friday's closing price. Dufry was up 4.4 percent.
Greek shares dipped, with Athens's ATG index falling 1.4 percent after Greece and its international creditors continued talks through the weekend on reforms to unlock loans and Athens sounded an upbeat tone, and the lenders said it could take several more days before a proper list of measures was ready.
At 07h51 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 1.2 percent at 1,597.12 points, after losing 2 percent last week.
“Last week, the market took a little breather, but there was no 'sell' signal. We would need a bigger retracement to break the market's positive trend,” said Jean-Louis Cussac, head of Perceval Finance.
“On the upside, there are no big resistance levels in sight, so the best thing to do is just to follow the trend for now.”
A renewed fall in the euro also helped fuel appetite for European stocks on Monday.
The dollar inched higher versus the euro after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen signalled that the US central bank will likely start raising borrowing costs later this year, but emphasised the return to normal interest rates will be gradual.
European stocks have strongly rallied since the start of the year as investors bet a fall in the euro would help revive the region's economic growth and corporate profits.
The euro is down about 20 percent against the dollar over the past year, which is set to give euro zone companies a major lift as roughly 50 percent of their earnings come from outside the region, while the stronger dollar is set to hurt US company results.
According to data from a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research, European equity funds attracted $5.4 billion in net investment flows last week, marking their 11th straight week of inflows, while US-focused stock funds posted $10.8 billion in outflows.
Also helping sentiment on Monday, weekend comments from Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan reinforced expectations for further monetary easing to support the country's slowing economy.
Reuters