Europe shares tick up to 3-week closing peak
* FTSEurofirst 300 up 0.1 pct
* British Airways, Iberia jump on merger news
* Telecom shares among top gainers; TeliaSonera up 6.2 pct
By Atul Prakash
LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - European shares edged up to a three-week closing high on Thursday with telecom shares leading the advance after soothing earnings results and airlines gaining ground on merger news.
But gains were limited by weaker financial stocks and a decline in energy and mining shares following a drop of 0.8 to 3.9 percent in prices of crude oil CLc1, copper MCU3, aluminium MAL3, nickel MNI3 and zinc MZN3.
The FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top European shares ended up 0.1 percent at 1,014.91 points, the highest close since Oct. 21. The index is up 22 percent in 2009 and has surged 57 percent since hitting a record low in March.
Telecom shares were among the top gainers after Britain's BT Group (BT.L) increased its outlook for the full year and Telefonica (TEF.MC) said its recession-hit Spanish business was shrinking more slowly.
BT Group rose 3.7 percent and Telefonica was 1.1 percent higher. TeliaSonera (TLSN.ST) climbed 6.2 percent after the Nordic region's biggest telecom operator and Alfa Group said they would combine their Eurasian mobile assets. [ID:nLC356170]
"I am fundamentally sceptical, but the market still has a short-term underlying positive bias," said Giuseppe-Guido Amato, strategist at Lang & Schwarz.
"We can get a setback here, but we have seen that we can recover very quickly after having a losing streak and that's a good sign," he added.
The market got some support from data showing the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless insurance fell for the second week in a row and the four-week moving average of claims was the lowest in nearly a year, pointing to improvements in the labour market. [ID:nN11377609]
British Airways (BAY.L) and Spain's Iberia (IBLA.MC) jumped 7.5 percent and 11.8 percent respectively as a merger between the two companies looked imminent as their boards held separate meetings to discuss a deal to create the world's third-largest airline by revenue. [ID:nLC092017]
"We think the upwards trend for equity markets is fully on track. Earnings season is almost over and it was mostly positive. Macro data will now gain in importance," said Tammo Greetfeld, strategist at Unicredit Group.
