UPDATE 1-Miners lift European shares as silver becomes latest retail play

(For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock
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* Fresnillo , Polymetal , Boliden jump
* Retail frenzy shifts focus to silver
* Ryanair sees record annual loss, shares fall

(Adds comments, bullets, background; Updates prices throughout)
By Shreyashi Sanyal
Feb 1 (Reuters) - European shares jumped on Monday, bouncing
from their worst weekly decline since October powered by a rise
in shares of miners after an ongoing retail frenzy shifted its
attention to silver.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index .STOXX rose 1.1%, with
shares of miners including Fresnillo FRES.L , Polymetal
International POLYP.L and Boliden AB BOL.ST jumping between
5% and 20%.
Silver has become the latest focus of a frenzied online
movement by retail investors to push up values of assets that
big fund managers had bet against. Silver prices surged to an
eight-year high on Monday. The European basic resources index .SXPP jumped 2.4%, on
track for its best day since early January.
"What we are seeing is an aggressive move higher on silver,
which has obviously propped up the mining sector," said David
Madden, market analyst at CMC Markets UK.
"Financial markets and regulators are also a lot more
comfortable with the rise in a commodity like silver, whose
price is a lot harder to influence as opposed to a stock," said
Madden.
All major European regional indexes were higher in early
trading, with Britain's FTSE 100 .FTSE up 0.9% and German
shares .GDAXI adding 1.4%.
Data showed German retail sales plunged far more than
expected in December as a decision to tighten lockdown measures
during the COVID-19 pandemic choked consumer spending in
Europe's largest economy. The STOXX 600 had logged declines of over 3% in the previous
week, on concerns around the slow roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines
and as a retail trading frenzy led to a rise in volatility.
Among other stocks, Ryanair RYA.I shed 2% after saying it
expects to lose close to 1 billion euros in its current
financial year, by far its worst ever performance. JD Sports Fashion JD.L jumped 6% as it said it would buy
Baltimore-based DTLR Villa LLC for $495 million. WORRIES
Concerns around the potential economic damage from a new
strain of the coronavirus in Europe and delays to vaccine
roll-outs have hurt sentiment in the past few sessions as Europe
urgently needs more shots to speed up its inoculation programme.
AstraZeneca AZN.L , Pfizer Inc PFE.N and Moderna Inc
MRNA.O have been facing difficulties in delivering the
shipments to the bloc.
"While the number of new COVID-19 cases has stabilised
somewhat, the focus is now increasingly shifting towards the
race to get people vaccinated ... and the campaign is making
slow progress in Europe," said Milan Cutkovic, market analyst at
Axi.

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