Nov.22/11

European stocks rose from a six-week low after rating companies reaffirmed America’s credit grades, offsetting a warning by Germany that there is no alternative to the current debt crisis plan. U.S. index futures advanced and Asian shares were little changed.

Antofagasta Plc (ANTO) led mining companies higher as copper recouped some of yesterday’s losses. Danske Bank A/S (DANSKE) rose 4.3 percent after Cevian Capital AB bought a stake in the Danish lender. Nokia Oyj (NOK1V) led declining shares, falling 6.1 percent, on concern about the company’s shipments and order books.

The benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index climbed 0.5 percent to 225.8 at 11:34 a.m. in London after briefly erasing gains. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures expiring in December rose 0.5 percent and the MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) gained 0.2 percent.

“This has the makings of another dead cat bounce,” said Terry Pratt, an institutional trader at IG Markets. “There’s still this double whammy of concerns -- the failure of the U.S. to reach a compromise over deficit-reduction plans and the ongoing threat to global economic confidence by the euro zone’s sovereign-debt woes.”

Stocks slumped around the world yesterday amid signs U.S. lawmakers would fail to reach an agreement on budget cuts, increasing the likelihood that the world’s largest economy will face another credit downgrade. Banks tumbled as dollar funding costs and euro-area bond yields surged.

Automatic Spending Cuts

Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service maintained their U.S. credit ratings even as Congress’s special debt-reduction committee failed to reach an agreement, setting the stage for $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts.

S&P reaffirmed it will keep its U.S. rating at AA+ after stripping the government of its top AAA grade on Aug. 5. Moody’s kept its AAA rating with a negative outlook. Fitch Ratings noted its August statement that said a supercommittee failure would probably result in a “negative rating action,” likely a revision of its outlook to negative, and that it will conclude a review by the end of this month.

Stocks pared their advance in Europe today after Germanyrejected calls from allies and investors to do more to counter market turmoil.

“We don’t have any new bazooka to pull out of the bag,”said Michael Meister, finance spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic bloc, in a telephone interview.“We see no alternative to the policy we follow. We need to tell markets this very clearly.”

Spain’s Bill Auction

Stocks also limited gains after Spain’s three-month borrowing costs doubled at an auction of 2.98 billion euros ($4.03 billion) of bills in the first test of confidence in Prime Minister-elect Mariano Rajoy since his victory on Nov. 20.

Spain sold three-month bills at an average yield of 5.11 percent, compared with 2.292 percent the last time they were sold on Oct. 25. That’s more than the 4.63 percent paid byGreece at an auction on Nov. 15. The Spanish Treasury also sold six-month bills at 5.227 percent, up from 3.302 percent last month.

Shares of Antofagasta rose 1.9 percent to 1,028 pence, Vedanta Resources Plc increased 1.7 percent to 964 pence and Rio Tinto Group rallied 1.6 percent to 3,133.5 pence.

Mining companies rebounded as copper climbed on the LondonMetal Exchange amid speculation that recent price drops were excessive as imports by China, the world’s biggest consumer, jumped and inventories fell. Aluminum, zinc and lead also rose.

World Bank Report

Separately, the World Bank said China is heading for a soft landing with growth of more than 8 percent next year, adding that it has fiscal scope to cushion its economy from an escalation in the euro area’s debt crisis.

A gauge of mining companies yesterday slumped 6.1 percent, its biggest plunge since Sept. 22, as copper led a selloff in base metal prices, falling 2.9 percent.

Danske Bank climbed 4.3 percent to 77.15 kroner after Cevian Capital, a Swedish investment company, bought a 5.02 percent stake in Denmark’s largest lender on behalf of itself and Carl Icahn. Cevian’s co-founder, Lars Foerberg, said the share price doesn’t reflect its long-term fundamental value.

British Land (BLND) rose 3 percent to 467.6 pence after Bank of America Corp. upgraded the U.K.’s second-largest REIT to “buy”from “neutral.” Separately, UBS AG cited British Land as the“most defensive of the U.K. majors.”

Zodiac Aerospace (ZC) rallied 4.1 percent to 55.03 euros after the maker of aeronautical equipment forecast about 20 percent growth in sales on a like-for-like basis in its first quarter, as the company supplies parts to new aircraft programs at Boeing Co. and Airbus SAS. Zodiac also plans to increase its dividend payment by 20 percent to 1.20 euro apiece.

Finmeccanica, Pandora

Finmeccanica SpA (FNC), which also supplies products for theairline industry, climbed 2.7 percent to 3.08 euros.

Pandora A/S jumped 14 percent to 57.20 kroner, for the biggest advance on the Stoxx 600, after the Danish jewelry maker reported a third-quarter profit of 341 million kroner ($62.1 million), beating most analysts’ estimates.

Nokia dropped 6.1 percent to 4.31 euros as Pacific Crest Securities Ltd. said in a report that the Finnish phone maker shipped fewer devices running Windows Phone 7 than predicted, while sales for the company’s Lumia product were“disappointing.”

Jefferies Group Inc. said in a note to clients that it has turned “incrementally cautious on Nokia,” due to signs that the order book has slowed into the fourth quarter.

Thomas Cook Group Plc (TCG) plunged 67 percent to 13.62 pence as Europe’s second-largest tour operator said it has held talks with banks on financing. The company agreed to relaxed loan conditions a month ago. Rival TUI Travel Plc slid 7 percent to 140 pence.