European shares notched up new 5-1/2 year highs yesterday, bolstered by a set of robust earnings and new signs of takeover activity, with energy stocks also fuelling market gains as they rose in step with oil prices.

British clothing retailer Marks & Spencer, Germany’s Postbank, Swiss specialty chemicals company Clariant and Spanish utility Gas Natural all pleased investors with strong quarterly numbers, helping to make up for Vivendi’s disappointing third-quarter sales growth.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was 0.1 percent higher at 1,468.84 points, after inching up to its highest intraday level since the start of June 2001.

A generally strong third-quarter reporting season has fostered a rally of more than 5 percent in the past month, while buying of shares for year-end “window dressing” of portfolios has also offset growing worries about a slowdown in the U.S. economy and the prospect of declining profit growth in the coming quarters.

But caution ahead of the results of U.S. mid-term congressional elections, with voting due to begin later in the session, slightly capped equity buying, as did choppy oil prices which hovered around $60 a barrel on Saudi Arabia’s talk of another cut to OPEC supply.

Around Europe, London’s FTSE 100 index and Frankfurt’s DAX were both flat while Paris’s CAC 40 rose 0.3 percent. The Swiss Market Index was down 0.1 percent in Zurich.

Spain’s blue-chip Ibex index climbed above 14 000 for the first time in its history, helped by a 1 percent rise in Gas Natural after the utility reported a 22.3 percent rise in its nine-month net profit. Other upbeat earnings also bolstered the markets.