European shares bounced back on Monday to hover near last week"s 12-month highs, with banks, food producers and drugmakers leading the advance ahead of more earnings results from major companies such as Apple, Reuters reported. Commodity shares were also in demand as a rise in metals prices helped miners, while energy equities drew strength for crude prices, which have jumped more than 10 percent this month. Financials added the most points to the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares, with Standard Chartered, HSBC, Barclays, Dexia and BNP Paribas up between 1.1 percent and 3.4 percent. By 1044 GMT, the benchmark index was up 1 percent at 1,020.02 points, just shy of a one-year high of 1,026.43 hit on Friday. It is up 23 percent so far in 2009 and has surged 58 percent since reaching a record low in March, but is still down 38 percent from a multi-year peak touched in mid-2007. The technical outlook remained positive, with the index staying in a broad uptrend channel dating back to March this year. It faces chart resistance at 1,023 points, the 38.2 percent retracement of its drop from mid-2007, but analysts see a good chance of that barrier breaking in coming weeks. "It"s looking encouraging. Having made new highs for the year last week, clearly the uptrend from the March low isn"t over," said Phil Roberts, technical analyst at Barclays Capital. "Medium- to long-term, it looks like it has got further upside potential, with a return to the highs of summer 2008 as the first objective," he said. The index hit a high of 1,378 points in May 2008. A reverse head & shoulders pattern formed by the November, March and July lows, and triggered in late July, points up to 1,134 points, which is roughly the 50 percent retracement of the bear market. Food producing companies were also in demand, with Nestle, Unilever, Cadbury and Associated British Foods rising between 0.7 percent and 4 percent. Across Europe, Britain"s FTSE 100 index, Germany"s DAX and France"s CAC 40 rose 1.2-1.3 percent. --SP
