feb 8  welcome to the home for realtime coverage of markets brought to you by reuters reporters you can share your thoughts with us at marketsresearchthomsonreuterscom stoxx up banks and energy beak new ground 0846 gmt european shares are off to a positive start as it looks investors have set aside worries over a faster policy tightening by the ecb for now to focus on sectors that should benefit the most from an ongoing economic and earnings recovery no wonder then that banks and energy are breaking new ground rising in early deals to their highest levels since august 2018 and january 2020 respectively while miners are seeing strong demand up more than 2 tech is lagging the upward trend following losses on the techheavy nasdaq and as rising rates put pressure on pricey valuations stay at home names are also generally weaker with ocado down 9 after the online supermarket warned it would miss 2022 core earnings estimates as due to more investments wellreceived results are lifting oil major bp and sensor maker ams but french bank bnp is lagging a positive banking sector as a miss on costs offset strong 2025 targets the stoxx 600 equity benchmark is up 07 looking for that ecb put 0801 gmt gradual datadependent  those were the words ecb president christine lagarde used to soften the hawkishness of her message last week but after three days of violent repricing on euro debt markets there is likely more to come borrowing costs for europes southern flank have risen sharply with investors now demanding a yield premium of 160 basis points to hold 10year italian bonds relative to safer german equivalents thats 30 bps more than before last thursdays ecb meeting european corporate debt may be due a correction too citi reckons topquality credit spreads could widen to 90 bps from 70 bps at the end of 2021 the recent moves are raising the risk of fragmentation along national lines of debt markets and the derailment of southern european economic recovery especially given the postcovid rise in spending deficits the question now is how far can the selloff go before policymakers offer reassurance  in other words the ecb put along the lines of the backstop the us fed is typically seen to provide equity markets the answer it might still have some time to run yields while rising are low in absolute terms and europe still has the safety net of the eu recovery fund lagarde promised the ecb is obviously going to respond if sovereign spreads widen a lot but as yields resume their climb on tuesday jpmorgan analysts note the market may be willing to test this commitment elsewhere softbanks deal to sell chip designer arm in a 60 billion deal has collapsed amid regulatory hurdles that comes days after a 5 billion purchase by taiwans globalwafers 6488two of germanys siltronic was scuppered by berlin key developments that should provide more direction to markets on tuesday british consumers slowed the pace of their spending last month read more frances bnp beats q4 profit estimates  bp records highest profit in eight years in 2021 read more european shares look set to open without a clear direction following late losses on wall street where facebook owner meta added to last weeks record plunge and after jitters over rate hikes in the euro zone caused a selloff in italian debt futures on the euro stoxx 50 index were flat and contracts on the ftse 100 which is geared towards commodity stocks added 02 finding support by positivesounding earnings updates bp recorded its higher profit in eight years holiday company tui sounded upbeat about its outlook saying summer travel bookings were steadily approaching precovid levels while ams topped revenue and margins estimates over in asia shares reversed early gains as investors fretted over the prospect of the us government adding a further 33 chinese entities to its export control list us stock index futures meantime were little changed read more