European Shares Rebound As Strike In Norway Ends

(RTTNews) - European stocks rebounded on Wednesday and natural gas prices fell sharply, as an end to strike by Norwegian oil and gas workers eased worries of energy supply crunch.

A major energy crisis in Europe has been averted for now after the Norwegian government reportedly intervened to resolve the dispute over pay.

Investors also cheered upbeat regional data. German new industrial orders grew 0.1 percent month-on-month in May, reversing the trend after a third consecutive monthly drop, Destatis reported.

That was in contrast to the revised 1.8 percent decline in April and the expected fall of 0.6 percent.

Eurozone retail sales rose 0.2 percent in May compared with the previous month, Eurostat said. The April data has been revised to a 1.4 percent decline, instead of the 1.3 percent sequential drop previously estimated.

The pan European Stoxx 600 rose over 1 percent to 404.83 after losing 2.1 percent the previous day on recession worries.

The German DAX and France's CAC 40 indexes gained around 1 percent each while the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was up 1.6 percent.

Just Eat Takeaway.com shares jumped 17 percent after Amazon agreed to buy a stake in its unit Grubhub.

Evotec AG added 1 percent. The German drug discovery and development company, Boehringer Ingelheim and bioMérieux have established a joint venture Aurobac Therapeutics SAS, with an investment of 40 million euros.

French car parts maker Faurecia slumped nearly 6 percent after Barclays double-downgraded its rating on the stock to "underweight."

Abrdn soared 7.4 percent after the British investment company launched a GBP300-million share buyback program.

Online booking site Trainline jumped almost 20 percent after the company upped its sales outlook, citing a recovery in demand for travel across Europe amid an influx of U.S. tourists.