Europe Stocks Rise As Borrowing Costs Fall

European shares closed higher on Thursday, boosted by euro zone banks as newly available cheap cash from the European Central Bank helped some sovereign bond yields fall and further allayed default risks among corporates.

Euro zone banks rose 2.6% after France's and Spain's borrowing costs fell at auctions on Thursday and yields on Italian notes dropped on the secondary market.

Italian banks, which own the lion's share of the country's debt, led gainers, with Banco Popolare rising 10.5% and UniCredit up 5.8%, helping Milan's FTSE MIB index outpace its peers to close 2.9% higher. Italian lenders took a quarter of all the money available at the ECB


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