European stocks close

European stocks rose on a background of successful Italian auction result. After yesterday's successful auction of Spain, the Italian Government also today held a successful auction and the yield of local 3-year bonds reached a low in March to 1.85% (3.5 billion euros).

Positive background also created the news that Japan, which is one of the largest economies in the world, has adopted a program to stimulate the economy amount to $ 116.8 billion These funds will be invested in infrastructure, financial assistance to small businesses and encourage corporate investment, TV channel NHK. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe believes that extra-soft monetary policy and economic incentives will help the country get out of the recession of the late 2012.

In the U.K., a report showed manufacturing production unexpectedly dropped in November. Factory output decreased 0.3 percent from October. The average estimate compiled had called for it to increase 0.5 percent.

National benchmark indexes gained in 11 of the 18 western- European markets. France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX both advanced 0.1 percent, while the U.K.’s FTSE 100 added 0.3 percent.

A gauge of European mining shares posted the biggest drop of the 19 industry groups in the Stoxx 600, slumping 1.7 percent. BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, declined 2.7 percent to 2,075 pence, its biggest slide since August. Rio Tinto Group lost 1.2 percent to 3,468 pence. Anglo American Plc , which named Mark Cutifani as its new chief executive officer on Jan. 8, dropped 1.5 percent to 2,042 pence.

SAP climbed 1.2 percent to 61.32 euros. The world’s largest maker of enterprise software unveiled a faster version of its Business Suite applications at an event in Palo Alto, California. SAP executives said they aim to replace software from Oracle, Microsoft Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. that customers use to process and analyze information.

Cap Gemini SA added 2.3 percent to 34.29 euros as rival IT outsourcing company Infosys Ltd. jumped the most since its initial public offering in 1993 in Mumbai trading after raising its full-year sales forecast.