European shares fell on Thursday as chip stocks slid and Nestl\u00e9 tumbled, while investors concluded that a European Central Bank (ECB) rate hike remains in play in September, even as it kept rates at its latest governing council meeting after increasing official borrowing costs last month. <\/p>\n
Geopolitical concerns added to the pressure. After months of investor focus on the Strait of Hormuz, attention has \u200cshifted to the Red Sea where Iranian-aligned Houthis, who control \u200bareas near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, have opened a new front in the Middle East crisis.<\/p>\n
Brent crude futures rose \u200bpast $100 (\u20ac87.90) a barrel, their highest since late May. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index fell 1.2 per cent. <\/p>\n
Dublin<\/p>\n
The Iseq All-Share index slid 2.4 per cent to 13,317.39. Ryanair plunged 5.1 per cent to \u20ac23.32, as rising oil prices weighed on market sentiment towards the carrier, days after it reported weaker-than-expected results. Fellow travel-related firm Irish Continental Group (ICG) fell 1.6 per cent to \u20ac6.30. <\/p>\n
Banks were also out of favour, with AIB off 1.9 per cent at \u20ac10.64, while Bank of Ireland slipped 0.6 per cent to \u20ac18.21. PTSB dipped 0.3 per cent to \u20ac3.02, but remained ahead of the \u20ac2.97 price that Austrian bank Bawag has agreed to buy the lender for, subject to approval at a PTSB extraordinary general meeting next week. <\/p>\n
London<\/p>\n
The blue-chip FTSE 100 index fell 0.7 per cent to 10,639.2 points, reversing most of the previous session\u2019s \u200b1 per cent rise. Precious metal miners dropped 5.1 per cent as gold prices fell around 2 per cent on a \u200cstronger \u200cdollar \u200band rising inflation concerns due to the oil-price spike.<\/p>\n
\u2060Travel and leisure shares retreated \u200b1.9 per cent with shares of airlines including Wizz leading \u200bdeclines as higher oil prices weighed.<\/p>\n
Mitchells & Butlers fell 5.1 per cent after the pub group reported flat third-quarter \u200clike-for-like sales, citing the adverse impact on \u200bits food business from the ongoing heatwave.<\/p>\n
Takeover target EasyJet rose 2.7 per cent despite the airline\u2019s third-quarter profit slumping 70 per cent as the Iran \u200bwar led to volatile fuel prices and made travellers wary, though earnings \u200bbeat analysts\u2019 estimates and the carrier indicated somewhat clearer skies heading into peak summer. <\/p>\n
Europe<\/p>\n
Tech stocks slipped, led lower by Netherlands-incorporated STMicroelectronics, which dropped 17.7 per cent to \u20ac49.97 after the chipmaker forecast third-quarter revenue with a midpoint slightly \u200bbelow market expectations. Dutch peer BE Semiconductor dropped 7.3 per cent after its second-quarter results.<\/p>\n
Nestl\u00e9 tumbled nearly 8 per cent in Zurich after reporting that high coffee and cocoa prices weighed on its first-half earnings, \u2060resulting in its biggest one-day drop since July 2002.<\/p>\n
Finnish forestry group \u200bStora Enso reported a quarterly operating profit below market expectations, sending its shares down about 8.5 per cent.<\/p>\n
New York<\/p>\n
US shares were at multi-week lows in early afternoon trading, as disappointing early Big Tech earnings \u200crevived concerns about heavy AI spending, while another jump in oil prices added to inflation worries.<\/p>\n
The tech-heavy Nasdaq led losses, briefly hitting its lowest level in more than two months. Second-quarter results from Google parent Alphabet and from Tesla, the first of the so-called Magnificent Seven megacap companies to report this season, failed to impress investors.<\/p>\n
Shares of Google\u2019s \u2060parent fell after the results did little to reassure investors as attention shifted to its higher spending plans and its first cash \u200cburn.<\/p>\n
Tesla dropped after reporting negative free cashflow for the second quarter for the first time in more than two years.<\/p>\n
Other megacap stocks \u2060also weakened. Investors will closely watch capital spending plans from \u200bmajor technology companies reporting next week, as questions grow over whether massive AI investments \u200bcan deliver returns strong enough to justify elevated valuations.<\/p>\n
Defence giant Lockheed Martin rose after lifting 2026 sales and profit forecasts.<\/p>\n
Thermo Fisher Scientific jumped as the medical equipment maker raised its annual profit forecast after beating estimates for \u200bsecond-quarter results. \u2013 Additional reporting by Reuters <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European shares fell on Thursday as chip stocks slid and Nestl\u00e9 tumbled, while investors concluded that a European…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[126],"tags":[52447,52448,3993,52450,199,658,52449,997],"class_list":["post-107322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nestle","tag-aib","tag-bank-of-ireland","tag-easyjet","tag-european-central-bank-ecb","tag-nestle","tag-oil","tag-ptsb","tag-ryanair"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116970655954102083","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}