year high as a jump in European sales strengthened hopes of a rosy first quarter. Societe Generale shares hit a fresh record after brokers raised their price targets following forecast-beating fourth-quarter results from the French bank on Thursday. The stock closed up 0.5 percent after touching a high of 119.30 euros. "The earnings season as a whole, with a couple of exceptions, is not so bad and people are still very much focused on the earnings momentum," said Deutsche Bank's de Boissezon. "That said, we've had a fairly strong run since the start of the year and the upside from here looks fairly limited, especially as we are going to go further into a Fed-tightening cycle, people will start focusing more and more on 2007, and then the going is likely to get much tougher," he said. "At the end of the earnings season you might see some form of consolidation," de Boissezon. Oil stocks added to gains on the day as oil prices climbed above $59 a barrel, extending the previous day's gains and stemming a two-week slide. Royal Dutch Shell rose 0.5 percent, Neste Oil gained 3.7 percent, and Statoil was up 2 percent. --SP 23 21 Local Time 20 21 GMT
