European shares bounce from banking and industry sectors

Europe’s stocks rose on Friday, propelled by banking and industrial stocks, while the technology sector got a boost from upbeat results from US megacaps.

Dublin

The Irish index of shares ended the week 0.5 per cent higher, lifted by gains in some construction and travel stocks.

Insulation specialist Kingspan was up 4.55 per cent by the close of the day, reaching €86.25. Ferries group Irish Continental also made gains, rising 1.57 per cent to finish off the week at €5.18.

But banking shares fell across the board, bucking the trend seen in their European counterparts. Bank of Ireland was down almost 2.3 per cent to close the week at €10.12, while AIB fell 2.4 per cent to €4.88. Permanent TSB also declined, falling more than 3.17 per cent, while insurer FBD was down almost 3.2 per cent by the close of the session.

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Shares in Ryanair edged higher, gaining just under 1 per cent.

London

London’s market rally continued on Friday as the FTSE 100 lifted to its latest record closing price, with the recent takeover frenzy continuing.

London’s top index finished 60.97 points, or 0.75 per cent, higher to end the day at 8,139.83.

In company news, NatWest rose despite revealing its profit slid by more than a quarter at the start of the year. The banking giant revealed an operating pretax profit of £1.3 billion (€1.5 billion) over the first three months of the year, down 27 per cent from £1.8 billion the previous year, but also highlighted higher customer deposits. Shares in the firm finished 17.6p higher at 307.4p on Friday.

Elsewhere, Darktrace surged in value after it agreed to be acquired by American private equity group Thomas Bravo and become the latest London firm to be taken private.

Europe

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index closed 1.2 per cent higher, notching up a weekly gain of 1.8 per cent, its biggest since late January.

The basket of Stoxx 600 banks touched a nine-month high, aided by a 6.1 per cent jump in NatWest after the British bank’s first-quarter results.

Industrials climbed 1.8 per cent, led by a 11.4 per cent leap in Finnish engineering group Wartsila after first-quarter order intake and core profit beat estimates. Construction and materials led sectoral gains, up 2.1 per cent, with Saint Gobain’s shares 6.9 per cent higher.

Among others, Swedish home appliance maker Electrolux climbed 6.5 per cent after a lower-than-expected first-quarter operating loss. Thyssenkrupp rose 6.2 per cent as the German conglomerate said it will sell a 20 per cent stake in its steel business to the energy holding controlled by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.

New York

Wall Street’s main indexes advanced on Friday as most megacap growth stocks rose. Alphabet jumped 10.1 per cent to a record high after the Google parent announced its first dividend, a $70 billion stock buyback and beat estimates for first-quarter results.

Lifting sentiment further, Microsoft rose 2.5 per cent on beating Wall Street estimates for third-quarter revenue and profit, driven by gains from AI adoption across its cloud services.

Other growth stocks also traded higher on the results, with Amazon.com and Nvidia up 2.9 per cent and 5.0 per cent, respectively.

Snap surged 26.4 per cent after the social media firm beat first-quarter estimates for revenue and user growth. Shares of Pinterest also rose 3.8 per cent.

Exxon Mobil lost 3.6 per cent after the oil company missed analysts’ estimates with a 28 per cent year-on-year drop in first-quarter profit.

Intel dropped 9.9 per cent on forecasting second-quarter revenue and profit below estimates as it faces weak demand for its traditional data centre and PC chips and trails in the surging market for AI components. – Additional reporting: Reuters, PA

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