European Stocks Close Higher As Investors Focus On Earnings

(RTTNews) - European stocks closed higher on Thursday, recovering from recent losses, as investors focused on earnings, digested the minutes from the European Central Bank's latest policy meeting, and continued to monitor the updates from the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Worries about accelerating inflation in several countries, and uncertainty about central banks' interest rate tracjectory continued to render the mood cautious, and limited markets' upside.

The pan European Stoxx 600 gained 0.59%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 edged up 0.17%, Germany's DAX climbed 0.83% and France's CAC 40 jumped 1.13%, while Switzerland's SMI ended 0.59% up.

Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Greece, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden ended higher.

Belgium, Finland, Russia and Turkiye closed weak, while Denmark and Portugal ended flat.

In the UK market, Flutter Entertainment soared more than 15% following a 15% rise in fourth-quarter revenue.

Entain climbed about 6%. Rolls-Royce Holdings, St. James's Place, Anglo American Plc, IHG and Kingfisher gained 2 to 3.4%.

Legal & General, Prudential, Ashtead Group, Howden Joinery, ICP, Melrose Industries, Taylor Wimpey, RS Group and Smith & Nephew advanced 1.5 to 1.8%.

Admiral Group, Centrica, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, Smurfit Kappa Group, Ds Smith, Ocado Group, Vodafone Group, Unilever, British American Tobacco, GSK, Tesco and National Grid ended down 1 to 2.4%.

Shares of Watches Of Switzerland Plc plummeted 37% after the luxury watch retailer cut its FY24 revenue guidance.

In the German market, Infineon rallied nearly 5%. Siemens Energy climbed about 3.5%. MTU Aero Engines, Commerzbank, SAP, Vonovia, Zalando, Siemens, BASF, Brenntag and Deutsche Post gained 1 to 2.5%.

Bayer ended down 2%, and E.ON declined 1.7%.

In Paris, STMicroElectronics surged nearly 4%. Teleperformance, Safran, LVMH, Capgemini, Kering, Airbus Group, Renault and Dassault Systemes gained 2 to 3%. Schneider Electric, Essilor, Hermes International, WorldLine, AXA, Saint Gobain and Vinci also ended sharply higher.

Unibail Rodamco, Pernod Ricard and Thales closed lower by 1.3 to 1.5%. Sanofi, Carrefour and Bouygues ended moderately lower.

In the Swiss market, Richemont jumped more than 10% after the luxury-goods company posted resilient sales growth in its fiscal third quarter.

Data from Eurostat showed Eurozone construction output dropped for the second straight month in November, falling by 1% from October, when it was down 0.6%.

The euro area current account surplus declined to a six-month low of EUR 25 billion in November from EUR 32 million in October, on sharp fall in primary income, the European Central Bank said Thursday.

The minutes from the ECB's latest policy meeting (December 13-14) said the central bank's policymakers stressed on the need to remain vigilant against inflation risks though they were increasingly more confident that the rate would be brought to the 2% target by 2025.

Policymakers highlighted that there was no room for complacency and they agreed that it was not the time for the Governing Council to lower its guard.

They stressed on the need for caution as inflation is likely to pick up in the near term. Further, there were continued uncertainties in relation to wages and underlying inflation dynamics, the minutes said.

"This suggested that it was still too early to be confident that the task had been accomplished," the minutes said.

In December, the ECB left its key interest unchanged for a second straight session and the bank lowered its inflation projections.