European stocks advance for a 6 straight week

European stocks rose for a sixth week as China’s slowest expansion in three years fueled speculation policy makers will add to stimulus measures and Italy’s borrowing costs fell at an auction. Storebrand ASA (STB), Norway’s second-largest publicly traded insurer, rallied 8.2 per cent after saying it will meet capital requirements without selling shares. Temenos Group AG (TEMN) rebounded 5.9 per cent. PSA Peugeot Citroen (UG) slumped to the lowest price. Thomas Steyer, chairman of Farallon Capital Management, talks about threats to the global economy, investment risk management and California’s tax policy. Steyer, speaking with Deirdre Bolton Bloomberg Television’s “Money Moves,” also discusses President Barack Obama’s re-election bid. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 1.3 per cent to 256.26 at the close of trading. The measure rose 0.7 per cent this week, its sixth straight week of gains and the longest streak of advances since April 2010 as Greek leaders formed a government, global central banks added stimulus and euro-area leaders announced on June 29 they will work on addressing flaws in their bailout programs. “A China slowdown is already priced into the markets and didn’t come as a surprise, and investors see additional stimulus coming in the near future,” said Trung-Tin Nguyen, a hedge-fund manager at TTN AG in Zurich. “Market participants also seem to be interpreting the bond auctions in Europe positively, even Spanish and Italian ones.” National benchmark indexes gained in all of the 18 western-European markets except Iceland. France’s CAC 40 advanced 1.5 per cent and the UK’s FTSE 100 climbed 1 per cent. Germany’s DAX rose 2.2 per cent. China’s growth slowed for a sixth quarter to the weakest pace since the global financial crisis, putting pressure on Premier Wen Jiabao to boost stimulus to secure a second-half economic rebound. Gross domestic product expanded 7.6 per cent last quarter from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today. The pace, a three-year low, compares with an 8.1 per cent gain in the previous period and the 7.7 per cent median forecast of economists. From gulftoday