By Sruthi Shankar
(Reuters) - European shares hovered near a 11-week high on Tuesday, with UK markets surging after a long weekend, as businesses worldwide gradually reopened following a months-long lockdown.
The pan-European STOXX 600 (STOXX) rose 1.2%, trading just below its March 10 high.
Returning from a bank holiday, UK's FTSE 100 (FTSE) surged 1.9% as Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday Britain will reopen thousands of high street shops, department stores and shopping centres next month.
Aston Martin (L:AML) soared 40.7% after the UK luxury carmaker confirmed that Tobias Moers, CEO of Mercedes-AMG, would become its chief executive officer.
Europe's travel & leisure stocks (SXTP) jumped 5.8% after a report said the German government wants to end a travel warning for tourist trips to 31 European countries from June 15 if the coronavirus situation allows.
British Airways owner IAG (L:ICAG) jumped 16.4%, low-cost carrier easyJet Plc (L:EZJ) and cruise liner Carnival Plc (L:CCL) gained about 12%.
Germany's Lufthansa (DE:LHAG) extended gains after the government threw a 9 billion euro lifeline.
"Any news on reopening of the economy and lack of stories about a second wave are going to be seen as a positive for markets," said Marija Veitmane, senior multi-asset strategist at State Street (NYSE:STT) Global Markets.
"What is interesting is that analysts are increasingly expecting Q2 to be the trough. But I would caution by saying that markets are still very, very fragile."
The STOXX 600 has climbed nearly 30% from its mid-March lows, as hopes of further policy support and improving economic data fuelled hopes of a faster economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
All eyes will be on the European Commission's release of its recovery plan on Wednesday to gauge the progress of a Franco-German proposal for a 500 billion euro grants-based coronavirus recovery fund.
Paris-headquartered shopping centre operator Klepierre SA (PA:LOIM) jumped 9.4% after saying it had reopened 80% of its European malls and hopes to reopen 90% of them within 10 days.
French carmakers Renault SA (PA:RENA) and Peugeot SA (PA:PEUP) jumped 6% and 3% respectively as President Emmanuel Macron said support for the hard-hit car sector will be "massively amplified".
Sources told Reuters that Renault and Nissan Motor Co Ltd (T:7201) have shelved plans to push towards the full merger and will instead fix their troubled alliance.
German payments firm Wirecard AG (DE:WDIG) fell 1.6% after it postponed the publication of final 2019 results for a third time, citing delays in finalising audit procedures.