By Ragini Mathur, Tharuniyaa Lakshmi and Johann M Cherian <\/p>\n
Aug 14 (Reuters) – European shares finished lower on Friday and snapped a four-week winning streak, as rising crude prices and renewed geopolitical \u200ctensions offset support from a resilient earnings season. <\/p>\n
The STOXX 600 ended 0.2% lower at 657.86 \u200cand logged a 0.3% drop on a weekly basis. <\/p>\n
Still, the euro zone benchmark was within 1% of a record high, having rallied \u200babout 3% in the previous four weeks, underpinned by better-than-expected second-quarter earnings. <\/p>\n
Aggregate STOXX 600 earnings are now forecast to grow 23.4%, making it the biggest increase in nearly four years, as profits in the energy and materials sectors soared. <\/p>\n
“Companies have been generating efficiencies in their business models and adapting to the increases in costs that \u200cthey’ve seen. Consumers also have remained \u2060remarkably resilient, given the challenges facing them from higher energy costs,” said Michael Hewson, a senior market analyst at iForex. <\/p>\n
The relatively smaller tech exposure in Europe has also \u2060worked in the region’s favour, as global investors look to the region while diversifying their portfolios away from AI-related stocks. <\/p>\n
Data has also pointed to a broadly resilient economy as the region’s economy grew 0.4% in the second quarter \u200bfrom \u200bthe previous three months, in line with economists polled \u200bby Reuters. <\/p>\n
“This has led us to broaden our \u200cEuropean equity exposure in multi-asset portfolios, taking profit on the incredible ride of European financials and broadening to all sectors across Europe,” said Laurent Clavel, global head of multi-asset at AXA Investment Managers, BNP Paribas Asset Management. <\/p>\n
However, as Iran and the U.S. remain at loggerheads over the control of the crucial Strait of Hormuz, oil prices are also likely to stay above pre-conflict levels, adding to uncertainty over longer-term impacts \u200con corporate performance and the economy. <\/p>\n
Healthcare stocks led sectoral declines \u200bwith a 1.5% drop, with Zealand Pharma down over 5.8%. Defence \u200bstocks, on the other hand, gained 1.2%, \u200bwith Rheinmetall up over 3.2%. <\/p>\n
European software companies SAP rose 2.7%, Nemetschek climbed 8.4% and \u200cTemenos gained 1.8%. <\/p>\n
A Reuters report that private equity \u200bfirm Silver Lake is \u200bin talks to acquire U.S.-based Workday rekindled investor interest in the group that had fallen out of favour on AI disruption concerns. <\/p>\n
Among others, British insurer Aviva advanced 1.8% after beating first-half profit \u200bexpectations. The STOXX insurance index added \u200c0.8%. <\/p>\n
Maersk added 8.7% and hit its highest in four years, extending strong gains after Thursday’s \u200bstronger-than-expected quarterly results and guidance upgrade. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Ragini Mathur, Johann M Cherian and Tharuniyaa Lakshmi \u200bin Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Harikrishnan Nair) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ragini Mathur, Tharuniyaa Lakshmi and Johann M Cherian Aug 14 (Reuters) – European shares finished lower on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1330,15,13091,58372,2359,484,889,48028],"class_list":["post-116295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-europe","tag-crude-prices","tag-european","tag-european-shares","tag-european-software-companies","tag-geopolitical-tensions","tag-oil-prices","tag-stoxx-600","tag-winning-streak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}