European shares recover slightly after slide

Europe's leading stock markets recovered slightly on Monday as investors sought out bargains and reacted to takeover and jobs speculation after sharp losses before the weekend. London's benchmark FTSE 100 index of top shares rose 0.13 percent to 5,773.46 points, while in Frankfurt the DAX rose 0.22 percent to 7,085.14 points and in Paris the CAC 40 rose 0.07 percent to 3,807.61 points. Europe's top indices had closed down between 1.25 and 1.90 percent on Friday after the European Union said it was studying a possible Greek debt "rescheduling" to ward off the threat of Greece defaulting on its massive debts. "After the shocker that was Friday's trading session, equities are experiencing something of a rebound," said Manoj Ladwa, senior trader at ETX Capital. Elsewhere in Europe, stocks were more mixed. Lisbon closed down 0.15 percent to 7.279.96 points. Madrid's Ibex-35 was nearly flat losing 0.05 percent to 9946.2 points. In Milan, the FTSE Mib closed Monday with a slight drop of 0.18 percent to 20,081 points. The Brussels Bel-20 index closed down 0.13 percent to 2,570.69 points and in Amsterdam, the AEX index closed up 0.06 percent to 334.04 points. Markets are increasingly concerned over the state of the global economy, owing to the eurozone debt crisis and slower growth in the United States and China. London's biggest gainer was Eurasian Natural Resources, up 5.86 percent to 785.5 pence on reports that it faced a possible takeover by commodities giant Glencore worth £12 billion (13.6 billion euros, $19.6 billion). Lloyds Banking Group's share price rose nearly 2.0 percent after weekend reports said that the state-rescued lender plans to axe 15,000 more jobs to save £1.0 billion. LBG was up 1.94 percent to 47.91 pence after British newspapers said the lender plans a fresh assault on jobs after already slashing 28,000 posts since 2009. Lloyds suffered huge losses in 2008 and 2009, as bad debts rocketed in the wake of its takeover of former rival HBOS, which was saddled with toxic or high-risk property investments. That led to the British state taking a 41-percent stake in the crisis-hit lender. Newspapers reported that LBG's new chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio wants to strip away layers of management and exit some overseas markets, although the bank is not commenting on the speculation. "Lloyds is making up a bulk of the volume traded so far today in the FTSE as it looks to trim more jobs," added Ladwa at ETX Capital. Wall Street followed also drifted upwards with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.09 percent at 11,962.36 at 1600 GMT. The broader S&P 500 index had gained 0.06 percent at 1,271.68, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 0.06 percent at 2,642.24. "Participants expect some bargain hunting to happen following Friday's losses," said analyst Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com. US industrial and energy stocks such as Boeing, Caterpillar, Chevron, IBM, 3M and Exxon led the rebound, with all of their share prices rising more than 0.5 percent at the start of trading. There were few data releases on the calendar to give the market direction. Asian stocks were mixed Monday as heavy selling Friday on Wall Street, a stronger yen and Chinese economic fears were tempered by gains in Seoul and Hong Kong, which both broke long losing streaks. Tokyo fell 0.70 percent, or 66.23 points, to 9,448.21 and Shanghai shed 0.18 percent, or 4.76 points, to 2,700.38.