European stocks moved higher on Thursday amid optimism about the path of interest rates, shrugging off investor disappointment at artificial intelligence (AI) giant Nvidia’s results.
Oil prices, meanwhile, rebounded from two sessions of losses as concerns about a political standoff in Libya led to output concerns.
Dublin
Broadly moving in line with its European peers, the Iseq index advanced 0.3 per cent.
Malin Corp advanced by more than 10 per cent to €6.45 per share after the life sciences company proposed to return around €45 million to shareholders via a tender offer in the fourth quarter of the year.
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Datalex, meanwhile, continued to add momentum, gaining 5.5 per cent to 42 cent per share after announcing a placing on Wednesday.
Housebuilder Cairn Homes added 1.3 per cent to close at €1.94 per share, while Kingspan was ahead by 1.1 per cent at €79.05.
Weighing on the index somewhat, Ryanair’s shares slipped marginally to €15.78 per share, while Glanbia fell by 0.25 per cent to €15.86.
London
The UK’s benchmark FTSE 100 index recovered after snapping a four-day losing streak on Wednesday, advancing by 0.5 per cent, while the mid-cap FTSE 250 dropped by 0.1 per cent.
Construction, materials and engineering shares led sectoral gains in the UK, with plumbing and fluid management system manufacture Spirax Sarco advancing 3.9 per cent to the top of the index. Meanwhile, beverages was the worst hit sector as spirits group Diageo fell nearly 2 per cent as its shares traded ex-dividend.
Meanwhile, Centrica rose 1.5 per cent after Jefferies upgraded the British energy supplier’s stock to “buy” from “hold”.
Bunzl rose 2.7 per cent after RBC raised the rating on the business supplies distributor’s stock to “sector perform” from “underperform”.
Hospitality and travel shares also improved with EasyJet up 2.1 per cent, Aer Lingus-owner IAG up by 0.7 per cent and hotel operator Whitbread ahead by 3.7 per cent.
Europe
With German stocks climbing up the indices amid optimism about the path of interest rates, the Dax index jumped by 0.6 per cent to record highs on Thursday. The blue-chip Stoxx 50 index moved 1 per cent higher, while the pan-European Stoxx 600 gained 0.7 per cent.
In Germany electronics giant Siemens, one of the best performers on the German index this year, advanced by more than 1 per cent, while Adidas advanced by more than 2 per cent and Mercedes Benz gained 0.4 per cent.
Pernod Ricard advanced by more than 2 per cent after it reported that sales were flat in its most recent financial year amid a drop-off in spirits globally, in line with market expectations and its own guidance.
New York
Wall Street’s main indices were trading higher at closing bell in Dublin with the Nasdaq Composite, the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average all ahead by around 1 per cent.
Nvidia beat analyst estimates on Wednesday with second-quarter revenue of $30 billion (€27.06bn) and third-quarter revenue forecast at $32.5 billion. But the results failed to meet lofty investor expectations that have underpinned a large rally in Nvidia shares and catapulted the company into one of the main drivers of the benchmark S&P 500. The stock was down 3.4 per cent.
Apple gained more than 2 per cent after Citigroup selected the iPhone-maker as its top AI pick over Nvidia. This helped the tech sector lead sectoral gains with a 0.9 per cent rise.
Dow-component Salesforce beat Wall Street expectations for second-quarter results, sending the enterprise cloud firm’s shares up 1.1 per cent.
CrowdStrike dropped 6.7 per cent after the cybersecurity company cut its revenue and profit forecasts in the aftermath of last month’s global tech outage.
Friday’s personal consumption expenditure data for June could offer hints on the US Federal Reserve’s monetary policy easing trajectory. – Additional reporting: Bloomberg, Reuters
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