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US, European stocks up, merger criticism hits AT&T-Time Warner

New York - US and European stocks moved higher on Monday, but criticism of the proposed mega-merger of AT&T and Time Warner prompted a decline in the firms' share prices.

The deal, worth $108bn, became a political issue after it was sharply criticised by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and drew scepticism from several leading Democrats, including vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine.

Time Warner and AT&T dropped 3.0% and 1.7%, respectively, as the companies girded for tough scrutiny over their merger.

But other technology shares moved higher in US trading: Amazon jumped 2.3% and Google parent Alphabet 1.7% ahead of earnings reports later this week. Apple, which reports on Tuesday, climbed 0.9%.

Wall Street action also focused on a series of smaller merger and acquisition announcements and quarterly earnings reports.

"Certainly the earnings season is coming better than expected by a long shot, in terms of numbers of companies that are beating and both the top and bottom line," said Art Hogan, of Wunderlich Securities.

"Then you have the hundreds of billions of dollars of M&A transactions announced, that tends to have a pretty positive effect on the market as well."

Eurozone stock markets marched higher following bright economic data, showing business activity in October at a 10-month high.

"A positive swell of data has continued to boost the eurozone," said analyst Connor Campbell at trading firm Spreadex.

In Asia meanwhile, Shanghai led a broad rally on hopes China will unveil fresh economy-boosting measures.

Chinese growth has levelled out this year after a painful slowdown, but there are hopes officials will push on with spending measures and reforms, particularly of giant state-owned firms.

But oil and oil-linked shares were down on the day.

"The comments by Iraq over the weekend that they think they should be able to raise their production and not be under quota raise some doubts about the OPEC deal," said Phil Flynn of Price Futures Group.

"And on top of that, a rising dollar puts downward pressure over the prices."

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