European stocks mixed, sterling gains as Britain exits recession

European stock markets posted mixed results on Thursday but the pound gained ground after data showed that Britain had marched smartly out of recession, news that offset a sharp drop in profit at Spanish banking giant Santander.

London’s FTSE 100 index of top companies closed essentially unchanged at 5,805.05 points, Frankfurt’s DAX 30 gained 0.10 per cent to 7,200.23 points and in Paris the CAC 40 fell by 0.44 per cent to 3,411.53.

In London, Gekko Global Markets trader Anita Paluch said that “very strong growth in the UK GDP, not seen in five years, has confirmed the double dip recession is over.

“Although the growth was expected, the numbers published have exceeded all expectations and cheered up the market.”

Britain, which is not part of the eurozone, has pulled out of its longest double-dip recession since the 1950s, and its economy returned to growth in the third quarter with a robust gain of 1.0 per cent, the data showed.

Markets had expected the British economy to expand by 0.6 per cent from the previous three-month period, after falling into a second trough of recession in late last year.

Elsewhere in European trading, Madrid’s IBEX 35 stock index dipped 0.16 per cent to 7,229.20 points after Santander reported a third-quarter profit plunge as it wrote down billions of euros in assets.