European stocks rose on Monday, the first session of 2021, heading for the first daily gain in 3 days, and hit an 11-month high thanks to strong market sentiment after US stocks jumped to record highs at Wall Street.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 1.4% as of 11:11 GMT, and hit the highest since February 405.74 points, after it closed lower by 0.25% on Thursday in the second straight daily loss due to profit-taking.
Stoxx Europe index gained around 0.8% during the past week, thanks to the good news about the Covid-19 vaccines, and the historic Brexit deal between Britain and the European Union.
The pan European index opened higher today, the first session of 2021, and hit an 11-month high with most of the major European markets and sectors seeing green.
The mining sector saw the largest gains in Europe today, rising more than 4.5%, followed by the travel and leisure sector, which rose more than 3.5%.
S&P 500 futures rose 0.75%, after the index closed higher by 0.6 on Thursday at Wall Street, and hit a record high of 3,760.20 points.
The first Covid-19 vaccination campaign was launched in the UK on Monday, using the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, which is the second vaccine to be approved after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The Brexit trade agreement began to take effect between the UK and the EU, a historic deal between London and Brussels to formulate their future relations after the Brexit transition period ended.
Back to Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 index rose 1.5%, France's CAC 40 rose 1.7%, Germany's DAX rose over 1.4%, and the UK's FTSE 100 rose 2.75%.