German energy shares shine as European markets slide

Shares in German energy companies shot higher on Monday thanks to indications they have sufficient funds to close down their nuclear power plants.

However, European markets slid overall as traders assessed whether the Federal Reserve would raise US interest rates this year.

Shares in German energy giants E.ON and RWE rallied after a government study suggested the two companies had sufficient financial buffers to safely dismantle their nuclear power plants.

"RWE and E.ON (shares) have fallen dramatically this year on fears that provisions put aside will be insufficient for the full decommissioning of nuclear plants," said Brenda Kelly, head analyst at traders London Capital Group.

"These concerns were laid to rest this morning by the German economy ministry and shares in the companies have jumped."

In afternoon deals, RWE was showing a gain of 10.2 percent to 13.50 euros and E.ON rallied 6.3 percent to 9.68 euros.

However Frankfurt's DAX 30 was down 0.17 percent to 10,079.18 points in afternoon trading.

The Paris CAC 40 lost 0.53 percent compared with Friday's close to 4,676.49 points.

In London, the FTSE 100 was meanwhile lower after "the index's best weekly advance since January", noted Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets.

The FTSE dropped 0.68 percent to stand at 6,372.61.

Focus was again on Glencore, with the mining giant saying it had begun talks to sell copper mines in Australia and Chile.

Under pressure from a crash in commodity prices and weighed down by debt, Glencore's share price was down 3.0 percent at 125.25 pence in London.

It had surged Friday after Glencore said it would slash its output of zinc by one third.

European stock markets had advanced Friday on growing hints that US interest rates will not rise until next year.

But over the weekend, Fed vice chairman Stanley Fischer said the bank expected to stick to its plan to tighten monetary policy by the end of the year.

However, he also noted that "both the timing of the first rate increase and any subsequent adjustments to the federal funds rate target will depend critically on future developments in the economy".

In foreign exchange, the euro rose to $1.1375 from $1.1359 late on Friday in New York, with uncertainty surrounding the exact timing of a US rate hike.

Shanghai meanwhile led a broad Asian equities rally Monday on hopes of fresh Chinese economic stimulus.

A mega-merger greeted US investors Monday as computer giant Dell announced it was buying data-storage giant EMC Corporation for $67 billion, but US stocks opened little-changed.

Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had drifted down 0.02 percent to 17,081.82 points.

The broad-based S&P 500 slipped 0.08 percent to 2,013.22, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.05 percent at 4,832.67.

EMC gained 2.8 percent on news of its buyout by privately held Dell, which aims to position itself as a leader in cloud computing and other increasingly important technology businesses.