European stocks rose in early trading on Monday, extending gains for the second straight day and hit a 13-month high, following Wall Street's strong gains, while the solution for the Suez Canal crisis draws near.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 0.4% as of 11:39 GMT, and hit the highest since February 2020 at 428.7 points, after closing higher by 0.9% on Friday thanks to strong gains in the mining sector.
The pan European index gained 0.9% last week, posting its fourth straight weekly gain, on improved risk appetite, after the US Treasury yields fell.
The food and beverage sector saw the largest gains in Europe today, with a jump of more than 1.1%, as most of the major companies' stocks rebounded.
The market sentiment improved following Wall Street's strong gains for the second straight session, thanks to successive strong economic data and expectations of the US economic recovery during the second quarter this year.
S&P 500 futures fell more than 0.2%, ahead of Wall Street opening after the index closed lower by 1.7% on Friday and posted the second straight daily gain.
The Egyptian authorities announced the success of efforts to refloat the Ever Given grounded ship in the Suez Canal, and traffic will get back to normal in hours.
Back to Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 index rose 0.5%, France's CAC 40 rose 0.4%, while the UK's FTSE 100 rose less than 0.1%.
Germany's DAX index added 0.5% hit a new record high of 14,834.9 points.