European stocks rebound after Tokyo gains

European stock markets rebounded on Tuesday, mirroring the pattern in Tokyo and following a strong showing by Wall Street overnight, analysts said. London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares rose 0.71 percent to stand at 6,571.30 points in late morning deals, Frankfurt's DAX 30 index climbed 0.46 percent to 8,323.56 points and in Paris the CAC 40 gained 0.52 percent to 3,941.05. Traders in the French capital appeared to brush off news that the International Monetary Fund had on Tuesday downgraded its forecast for the French economy in 2013 and 2014. Madrid's IBEX 35 index meanwhile jumped 1.0 percent to 8,372.5 points, as official data showed that the queue of Spanish jobless benefit claimants had shrunk in May for a third straight month. "A strong close in the US trading session and the mild rebound in Japan's benchmark (stocks index) overnight have seen investors dip a cautious toe into European risk assets," said Brenda Kelly, senior market strategist at IG traders. Bank shares were among the biggest gainers, with HSBC winning 1.34 percent to 728 pence, Societe Generale jumping 2.47 percent to 31.35 euros and Deutsche Bank up 2.13 percent to 36.67 euros. The euro climbed to $1.3087 from $1.3076 late in New York on Monday. The dollar grew to 100.30 yen from 99.52 yen on Monday. On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold gained to $1,405.80 an ounce from $1,402.50 on Monday. The IMF on Tuesday said France's GDP would contract by 0.2 percent this year and grow by 0.8 percent in 2014, compared to previous predictions of a 0.1 percent contraction in 2013 and 0.9 percent growth next year. It added that it would be "hard" to reverse the unemployment trend by the end of the year. In Spain, the government hailed Tuesday's positive jobs data as it battles record unemployment But Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative Popular Party government admitted that May is often a good month for the labour market. And when seasonal blips are smoothed out, the data showed that the number of job seekers was actually almost unchanged. Raw figures from the Labour Ministry showed that the number of people registered as unemployed fell from the previous month by 98,265, or 1.97 percent, to 4.89 million in May, after declines of 0.91 percent in April and 0.1 percent in March. In company news Tuesday, Italian group Generali said it had sold its US life reinsurance business to France's SCOR for $750 million (579 million euros), subject to regulatory approval. The purchase makes Scor the biggest life reinsurance company in the United States, and sent the French company's share price rallying 2.67 percent to 22.86 euros in Paris trading. Tokyo's benchmark stocks index meanwhile ended with a large gain of 2.05 percent on Tuesday, helped in part by expectations of more policy easing by the Bank of Japan, traders said. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index, which had lost 15 percent in the past 10 days, closed at 13,533.76 points. Tokyo won some support after Wall Street rebounded from Friday's steep losses despite weaker manufacturing data as well as a lower-than-expected reading on construction spending. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.92 percent to finish at 15,254.03 points Monday, with the poor data easing some concerns the Federal Reserve will cut its huge monthly asset purchases in the near term.