European equities edged lower on Friday as investors absorbed mixed quarterly results and a benign euro zone inflation report that reinforced the European Central Bank’s view that price pressures remain contained.
Dublin
Irish shares ended in positive territory, with gains in banking shares outweighing the decline in heavyweights such as Kerry and Kingspan.
Bank of Ireland shares gained marginally, closing the day at €14.18, while AIB rose 1.5 per cent to finish the week at €7.98.
PTSB saw strong interest, with trading volumes continuing to run at 10 times their normal level in the wake of the decision Thursday to put itself on the market. The lender held on to the gains made on Thursday, closing unchanged on the day at €2.90.
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Food group Glanbia was up almost half a per cent by the end of the sessions, while Ryanair added 1 per cent to its value.
At the other end of the scale, insulation specialist Kingspan shed another 2.26 per cent to end on €64.90. The share has been under pressure all week, losing ground in every session and is now close to 8 per cent weaker than last Friday.
Kerry also lost 1.4 per cent, ending the week on a negative note. But for the market as a whole, October was positive with the All Share index up 5.2 per cent since the end of September.
London
British stocks finished lower, with the blue-chip FTSE 100 extending its fall from the previous session as markets cooled after a record run earlier this month.
The FTSE 100 and the domestically focused FTSE 250 ended 0.44 per cent and 0.47 per cent lower, respectively. Still, both indices made gains over the month, with the FTSE 100 touching record highs multiple times in October and the midcap index trading close to four-year highs.
In company news, Auto Trader’s shares dipped 3.4 per cent after the automotive platform announced its operations chief will step down.
Fresnillo lost 1.1 per cent after the gold miner said it has agreed to buy Canada’s Probe Gold for 780 million Canadian dollars in cash, marking its expansion into North American markets.
Europe
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index ended down 0.5 per cent, its fourth straight losing session.
Insurers were the biggest decliners, down 1.9 per cent. Axa fell 4.4 per cent after reporting a drop in new business profits at its life insurance business and weaker pricing. Paris-based Scor dropped 13 per cent after reporting third-quarter results, leading losses on the Stoxx 600.
Bank stocks were the only bright spot. Erste Group Bank jumped 5.5 per cent after the lender raised its annual outlook after third-quarter results, while Danske Bank rose 3.1 per cent after Denmark’s biggest bank reported quarterly net profit slightly above expectations.
Gains in bank stocks helped limit losses on the Spanish and Italian stock exchanges to 0.1 per cent each.
New York
US stock indices rose, putting them on track to close October in the green, after Amazon’s upbeat earnings forecast helped ease concerns over Big Tech’s heavy spending on artificial intelligence.
Amazon shares jumped 10.6 per cent to an all-time high after the online retailer forecast quarterly sales above estimates, helped by cloud revenue rising at the fastest clip in nearly three years.
Apple’s forecast for iPhone sales in the holiday quarter surpassed Wall Street expectations, but CEO Tim Cook flagged supply constraints. Its shares were last flat.
Nvidia, which became the first publicly listed firm to surpass $5 trillion in market value earlier this week, rose 1.6 per cent after CEO Jensen Huang said he hoped the company’s state-of-the-art Blackwell chips can be sold in China.
At 12.01pm ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 31.46 points, or 0.07 per cent, to 47,490.66; the S&P 500 gained 15.34 points, or 0.22 per cent, to 6,837.68; and the Nasdaq Composite gained 152.31 points, or 0.65 per cent, to 23,733.45.
In other moves, Warner Bros Discovery rose 1.9 per cent following a Reuters report that Netflix was actively exploring a bid for the company’s studio and streaming business. Netflix added 3.6 per cent as it unveiled plans for a 10-for-1 stock split.
Getty Images rose 5 per cent after signing a global multiyear licensing agreement with Perplexity AI. – Additional reporting: Reuters
