* FTSEurofirst 300 closes up 0.5 percent * Nokia up on Texas Instruments cellphone chip sales * Energy gains as crude rises By Joanne Frearson
LONDON, June 9 (Reuters) - Shares in Nokia jumped on Tuesday after U.S. chip maker Texas Instruments reported better than expected cellphone chip sales and energy companies gained with the price of crude, pushing European stocks higher.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares closed 0.5 percent higher at 869.56 points after choppy trade between 875.75 and 865.53 earlier in the session.
The index is up around 34 percent for the year since hitting a lifetime low in early March.
"It is a very quiet day on the market. Maybe this is the tone of what we are going to be in for this summer ... I think the market has come up as far as it is going to for a while ... now I think investors are going to sit on their hands," said Jim Wood-Smith, head of research at Williams de Broe.
Technology stocks added the most points to the index. Nokia gained 3.7 percent as Texas Instruments raised its targets for second-quarter earnings and revenue, signalling improving demand in the chip market. "The implication is that Nokia, the large global handset market bellwether, is seeing momentum towards volume recovery on its own competitive merits," said CCS Insight analyst John Jackson.
Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Infineon Technology were up 0.7-2.9 percent.
Energy stocks were also higher as crude rose 1.8 percent, snapping a two-day slide. BP, Tullow Oil and Total were up 0.3-4 percent.
Across Europe, the FTSE 100 index was down 0.01 percent, Germany's DAX was down 0.1 percent and France's CAC 40 was up 0.2 percent.
BANKS MIXED
Banks were among the biggest movers, although stocks within the sector were mixed. Lloyds Banking Group gained 3.1 percent after it said it is to close all branches of its Cheltenham & Gloucester unit as part of a shake-up of its mortgage and loans operations that will cut upto 1,660 full-time jobs. Banco Santander, BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse were up 1.1-1.7 percent.
HSBC lost 1.1 percent as traders cited concerns that a major stakeholder may need to place shares.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department said that 10 of the nation's biggest banks had been cleared to pay back a combined $68 billion of taxpayer money pumped into them last year to combat the credit crisis.
The DJ Banking Eurostoxx banking index is up around 21 percent for the year following a 64.76 percent slump the previous year.
On the downside, defensive stocks were out of favour. Food retailer Carrefour was down 3.2 percent and British American Tobacco was 1.9 lower.
Earlier stocks pared losses after German industrial production fell unexpectedly by 1.9 percent month-on-month in April, hit by a sharp fall in capital goods output, the Economy Ministry said. German exports resumed their slide in April and imports fell even more sharply, tempering hopes that Europe's largest economy will soon recover from its deepest recession since World War Two. "Everything was struggling to go up today as optimistic talk of recovery in the U.S. this summer was countered by dire export numbers and an unexpected decline in industrial output in Germany suggested that Europe's largest economy is unlikely to recover any time soon," said Mic Mills, senior trader at ETX Capital.
(Editing by David Cowell)