European stocks advanced before Cypriot government officials met with representatives of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to seek easier bailout terms. U.S. futures and Asian shares were little changed. ICAP Plc, the world's largest broker of transactions between banks, gained 1.9 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index (SXXP) added 0.3 percent to 294.61 at 8:12 a.m. in London. Western European markets were closed on Friday and Monday for the Easter holiday. The gauge has risen 5.3 percent this year as U.S. lawmakers agreed on a compromise budget and optimism grew that central banks around the world will continue stimulus measures to support economic recovery. Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures gained 0.1 percent, while the MSCI Asia Pacific Index slipped 0.2 percent. “Final outstanding issues in talks with the troika primarily relate to the wider financial sector and fiscal policy and adjustment," Christos Stylianides, the Cypriot government's spokesman, said in Nicosia yesterday. The government has been granted an extension to 2017 from 2016 to secure a primary budget surplus, which excludes interest payments, and it hopes to negotiate an additional year to 2018, he said. The U.K. economy will avoid another recession and exports will help propel a “modest" recovery this year, according to the British Chambers of Commerce. The BCC's gauges of domestic and foreign demand at manufacturers and services companies all rose last quarter, the London-based group said in a report today, with the export measures close to a record. ICAP Gains ICAP gained 5.6 pence to 296 pence as Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. said it will buy eSpeed, the electronic trading system for U.S. Treasuries, from BGC Partners Inc. for about $750 million in cash. Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA slid 4.7 percent to 17.6 euro cents after it reported a third straight quarterly loss, missing analysts' estimates, on soaring bad-loan provisions and lower income from lending. Italy's third-biggest bank posted a fourth-quarter net loss of 1.59 billion euros ($2 billion) compared with a 5 billion- euro loss a year before, when it wrote down goodwill related to acquisitions. That missed the 686.3 million-euro loss estimated by 11 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Syngenta AG (SYNN), which produces crop protection products and seeds, lost 1.8 percent to 388.7 Swiss francs after Liberum Capital Ltd. downgraded the shares to hold. Bloomberg
