European shares rise 2% on stimulus hopes

(Reuters) – European shares rose on Tuesday, as investors hoped major central banks and governments were inching toward steps to counter the economic blow from the coronavirus outbreak.

G7 central bank governors and finance ministers will hold a conference call at 1200GMT to discuss measures to deal with the outbreak, although a source at the group said it would not detail any immediate fiscal or monetary steps to boost growth.

The pan-European STOXX 600 <.STOXX> rose 2% by 0814 GMT, following a 5% jump for Wall Street indexes overnight.

All sub-sectors were up, with the battered travel & leisure index <.SXTP>, financial services <.SXFP> and insurers <.SXIP> leading the gains.

Among individual movers, German meal-kit delivery firm HelloFresh jumped 5.4% after forecasting growth in 2020 revenue and core profit.

Qiagen NV soared 20% to the top of STOXX 600 after U.S. firm Thermo Fisher Scientific launched a 10.4 billion euro ($11.6 billion) bid for the German genetic testing company.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)