European Stocks Hit All-Time High

European stocks hit an all-time high on Tuesday, as well, as investors returned from a four-day Easter break, with gains lead by the trade-sensitive DAX performance index in Germany, which rose more than 1.1% to a fresh record high in early Frankfurt trading

European traders returned from a long weekend to push the STOXX 600 up 0.8% to 435.7 points. It has climbed more than 60% from last year’s lows and surpassed its previous all-time high of 433.90 points in February 2020.

The German DAX rose 1.1% to add to its recent record-setting rally, France’s CAC 40 was up 0.6%, also fully recovering from last year’s crash and UK’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.2%.

Economically sensitive sectors such as banking, commodity and automakers rebounded strongly this year, boosting European stocks.

However, it took the benchmark seven months more than the U.S. S&P 500 to reclaim its pre-pandemic high, slowed down by a sluggish vaccination roll-out and a new wave of infections

Miners were the top gainers on Tuesday, up 2.4%, while banks, automakers and insurers rose more than 1.0%.

Swiss bank Credit Suisse slipped 0.6% after sharp losses last week, as it announced an estimated loss of 4.4 billion Swiss francs ($4.7 billion) from its relationship with Archegos Capital Management.

UK stocks took cheer as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said a planned reopening of the economy could take place next week. [.L]

However, British Airways-owner IAG, easyJet and Ryanair lagged wider markets as Johnson added it was too soon to say whether international summer holidays can go ahead this year.

BP jumped 2.8% after the oil major said it expects to reach its $35 billion net debt target in the first quarter of 2021.