EUROPE MARKETS: European Stocks Pare Gains After Greece Meeting, But Eye Weekly Win

By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch

European stocks pared gains Friday, following a lackluster end to meeting on Greece's debt troubles, but equities remained on track for a weekly advance.

The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.2% to 407.86, stepping back from stronger gains as consumer-services, technology and oil and gas shares turned lower.

AstraZeneca shares were at the bottom of the Stoxx 600, losing 2.4% after the drug maker posted a posted a fall in first-quarter profit and sales (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/astrazeneca-profit-falls-as-new-drug-costs-rise-2015-04-24).

But shares of HSBC PLC (HSBC) became the best performing on the Stoxx 600, jumping 3.4% after the banking heavyweight said it is considering moving its headquarters out of the U.K (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hsbc-considers-quitting-the-uk-2015-04-24).

The pan-European benchmark looking at a 0.9% rise for the week, which would be its third weekly gain in four weeks. It is up about 19% so far this year.

Greece: Greece's Athex Composite was up 1.8% at 749.13, coming off session highs after a meeting of eurozone finance ministers concluded without any agreement related to economic reforms needed for Greece to receive more bailout funds.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the Eurogroup finance ministers, said Greece is running out of cash. Economists at Credit Suisse on Friday said Greece could keep operations moving until July without running out of cash. Read: Greece can survive deadlock until July. (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/greece-can-survive-debt-deadlock-until-july-credit-suisse-says-2015-04-24)

Analysts ahead of Friday's Eurogroup meeting said it appeared unlikely any major breakthrough would emerge, but reports late Thursday following discussions between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras raised the prospect that more progress had been made.

Among stock moves, shares of Piraeus Bank SA jumped 12%, Attica Bank SA rose 7% and National Bank of Greece rose 6.1%.

Greek bond prices fell Friday afternoon, pushing the yield on 2-year debt up by 15 basis points to 24.9%, and the yield on 10-year bonds up 25 basis points to 17.6%. Prices and yields move inversely.

Germany: Germany's DAX 30 was up 0.3% at 11,747.78. The widely watched Ifo sentiment survey for April rose to 108.6 (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ifo-german-business-mood-at-highest-since-june-2015-04-24) from 107.9 in March, reaching its highest level since June 2014. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected the indicator to rise to 108.4.

The findings from Ifo Insitute "could add to evidence that eurozone's growth engine is gathering steam, despite the weak preliminary manufacturing and service-sector PMIs on Thursday," said Marshall Gittler, head of global currency strategy, at IronFX Global Ltd., in a note early Friday. The effects from lower oil prices and a weaker euro "is likely to slowly feed through the real economy going forward and could provide further support to domestic sentiment."

The euro (EURUSD) had risen following the release of the survey, but eventually drifted back to late Thursday levels around $1.0826.

On other major stock indexes, France's CAC 40 edged up 0.1% to 5,182.22 and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 gained 0.1% to 7,060.26. S

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