Friday saw a rise in Europe’s stocks, primarily driven by banking and industrial equities, with positive results from major US corporations boosting the technology sphere. Meanwhile, the market in Dublin concluded the week with a 0.5% increment, aided by construction and travel shares’ performance. Kingspan, an insulation company reported a 4.55% increase, hitting €86.25 at market close. Ferry firm Irish Continental also registered gains, ending the week at €5.18, an increase of 1.57%. Contrarily, shares in many banks experienced a downturn, going against the positive European trend. Both Bank of Ireland and AIB reported a downtrend of about 2.3% and 2.4% respectively, closing the week at €10.12 and €4.88. Permanent TSB and FBD insurer on the other hand, registered declines of over 3.17% and nearly 3.2% respectively. Ryanair’s shares slightly improved, reporting a growth of nearly 1%.
Amid ongoing acquisition activities, the market rally in London persisted on Friday, with the FTSE 100 hitting its all-time record closing price, closing 60.97 points, or 0.75%, higher at 8,139.83. Despite corporate news of NatWest’s profit dipping by over a quarter at the start of the year, shares in the company finished at a higher nonetheles: 17.6p higher at 307.4p on Friday. Cybersecurity company, Darktrace, saw a surge in value after agreeing to go private and be acquired by American private equity group, Thomas Bravo.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index exhibited a healthy rise, closing 1.2% higher and recording a weekly boost of 1.8%, marking its most significant rise since the end of January.
The Stoxx 600 banks’ basket achieved a nine-month peak, thanks to a 6.1% increase in NatWest following the British bank’s impressive first-quarter outcomes. The industrials sector also rose 1.8%, primarily driven by a significant 11.4% surge in the Finnish engineering group, Wartsila, as their first-quarter order intake and core profit exceeded expectations. Construction and materials boasted the highest growth among sectors, increasing 2.1%, with a noteworthy 6.9% rise in Saint Gobain’s shares.
Additionally, Swedish domestic appliance producer Electrolux observed a 6.5% boost after reporting a smaller first-quarter operational loss than predicted. Thyssenkrupp, a German conglomerate, saw a 6.2% increase after announcing plans to sell a 20% stake in its steel division to an energy holding owned by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.
Across the pond in New York, Wall Street’s key indices rose on Friday, thanks to most large-cap growth stocks experiencing upticks. Alphabet’s shares escalated 10.1% to an all-time high after the parent company of Google announced its first-ever dividend, a $70 billion stock repurchase, and first-quarter results that surpassed anticipations. Further bolstering market optimism, Microsoft saw a 2.5% rise after beating Wall Street’s revenue and profit predictions for the third quarter, primarily fuelled by increased AI adoption within its cloud services.
Other growth stocks such as Amazon.com and Nvidia also performed well, enjoying increases of 2.9% and 5.0% respectively. Snap recorded a whopping 26.4% surge after exceeding first-quarter revenue and user growth expectations, while Pinterest saw a moderate rise of 3.8%.
However, it wasn’t all good news, with Exxon Mobil witnessing a 3.6% drop after the oil firm fell short of analysts’ estimates due to a 28% year-over-year reduction in first-quarter profit. Intel also experienced a drop, with a 9.9% decrease following a forecast of subpar second-quarter revenue and profit as a result of low demand for its traditional data centre and PC chips, coupled with lagging behind in the booming AI components market.
Extra reporting by: Reuters, PA
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