European shares scaled new five-year highs on Wednesday, led by gains for several major Swiss stocks after a fresh fall on the Swiss franc that should continue to buoy the country's exporters, Reuters reported. UBS technical analysts said European equity markets may retreat by June, but the majority of traders and investors felt any such pull-back would be short-lived and that European stock markets should continue to rise over the course of 2013. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index closed up 0.7 percent at 1,245.66 points, its highest level since mid-2008, while the euro zone's blue-chip Euro STOXX 50 index also rose 0.5 percent to 2,809.58 points. The Swiss SMI index rose 1.5 percent to outperform other European markets, with gains at pharmaceutical groups Novartis and Roche, and food company Nestle adding the most points to the FTSEurofirst 300. Clarinvest fund manager Ion-Marc Valahu said Swiss companies were benefiting from a fresh fall in the Swiss franc against the euro and U.S. dollar, which would continue to help the country's companies export products. He added it was difficult to justify bets on a broad-market fall in the current environment, due to rate cuts and injections of liquidity by world central banks which have hit returns on bonds and caused investors to move money over to equities. "It's tough to go against the flow of money coming from the central banks," he said.
