Italian stocks shoot up

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Italian stocks shoot up

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Italian stock market shot up 6.34 % Friday following better than expected US employment data.

03 August,2012 09:34 pm

The benchmark FTSE Mib index in Milan rose to 14,125 points at the end of an all-day rally. The index lost 4.64 percent on Thursday.Fridays biggest winners were the banks as shares in Mediolanum investment bank led the rally with gains of more than 16 percent.Italys second biggest bank Intesa Sanpaolo was also up sharply even though earlier on Friday it announced a huge drop in profits.Its profit sank by 36.6 percent in the second quarter to 470 million euros ($580 million) but the result was still far better than analyst forecasts.The United States added 163,000 jobs in July, much better than the 100,000 expected, although the unemployment rate ticked up a tenth point to 8.3 percent, the Labor Department said.