European shares rise as tech jitters ease; earnings, deals in focus

European shares edged higher on Monday, tracking a rebound in global equities following a selloff last week, as investors also assessed earnings from Italian lender UniCredit and developments on the deals front.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index .STOXX was up 0.5% at 620.12 points, as of 0809 GMT.

Global equities have been recovering from a volatile patch last week, triggered by concerns that newer artificial intelligence models could disrupt traditional software businesses, even as industry leaders such as Alphabet GOOGL.O and Amazon.com AMZN.O set fresh spending targets to develop the technology.

The rebound on Friday helped the STOXX index register weekly gains, although uncertainty surrounding the technology sector is likely to remain on investors' minds. The tech sector .SX8P gained 1% on Monday.

In M&A news, a consortium led by holding firm Advent and FedEx <FDX.N> has agreed to buy parcel locker company InPost <INPST.AS> in a $9.2 billion deal, sending shares of the Polish company up 13.3%.

Shares of Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk <NOVOb.CO> gained 8.2% after U.S.-based Hims & Hers <HIMS.N> said it will stop offering its cheap GLP-1 pill, following a warning from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that it would take action against the product.

UniCredit <CRDI.MI>, Italy's second-largest bank by total assets, gained 4.3% after saying it aims to lift profit to 11 billion euros ($13 billion) this year, helping euro zone banks .SX7E climb 1.6% and lead sectoral advances.

-Reporting by Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips/Reuters