U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable meeting on the administration’s “ratepayer protection pledge” in the Indian Treaty Room at the White House on March 4, 2026 in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n
Win McNamee | Getty Images<\/p>\n
LONDON \u2014 European stocks are set to open in mixed territory again on Thursday as market participants follow geopolitical developments in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The U.K.’s FTSE<\/a> index is seen opening 0.5% higher, Germany’s DAX<\/a> down 0.2%, France’s CAC 40<\/a>\u00a0down 0.25% and Italy’s FTSE MIB<\/a> 0.2% lower, according to data from IG.<\/p>\n Spain’s IBEX<\/a> is expected to open 0.5% lower with the country in trouble with U.S. President Donald Trump after it refused to allow U.S. forces to use its bases<\/a> for strikes on Iran. “Spain has been terrible,” Trump said on Tuesday. “We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain.”<\/p>\n Global market attention remains focused on the U.S. and Israel’s war on Iran, with attacks intensifying over the last 24 hours. <\/p>\n Israel on Wednesday launched a fresh round of\u00a0attacks on Tehran<\/a>, with the country’s defense minister vowing to “crush” the Iranian regime’s capabilities. Meanwhile, the U.S. said has destroyed\u00a017 Iranian ships<\/a>\u00a0and nearly 2,000 targets.<\/p>\n Follow CNBC’s live blog on Iran here: War powers vote fails in the Senate, allowing Trump to continue Iran strikes<\/a><\/p>\n In Iran, senior clerics responsible for selecting the next supreme leader are considering naming\u00a0Mojtaba Khamenei<\/a>, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to the top post, according to reports.<\/p>\n The U.S. and Israel’s endgame when it comes to “Operation Epic Fury” remains uncertain, and experts have told CNBC they could get bogged down<\/a> in the war if the Iranian regime proves more resilient than expected.<\/p>\n Earnings come from Merck<\/a>, DHL Group<\/a>, Reckitt Benckiser<\/a>, Galderma Group<\/a> and Universal Music Group<\/a> while data releases include the latest EU retail sales figures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable meeting on the administration’s “ratepayer protection pledge” in the Indian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[209,116,327,135,3166,3167,3168,3172,38,159,382,2272,3165,3174,563,537,108,34,561,169,3170,566,165,37,384,161,110,3169,3171,171,3173,1218,69,51,109,3175,2787,562,2788,2376],"class_list":{"0":"post-4424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-gc26j","9":"tag-lco26q","10":"tag-ali-khamenei","11":"tag-business-news","12":"tag-cac-40-index","13":"tag-dax","14":"tag-daxor-corp","15":"tag-deutsche-post-ag","16":"tag-donald-trump","17":"tag-foreign-policy","18":"tag-france","19":"tag-ftse-100","20":"tag-ftse-mib","21":"tag-galderma-group-ag","22":"tag-general-dynamics-corp","23":"tag-germany","24":"tag-invesco-db-oil-fund","25":"tag-iran","26":"tag-ishares-msci-germany-etf","27":"tag-ishares-msci-israel-etf","28":"tag-ishares-msci-spain-etf","29":"tag-ishares-msci-united-kingdom-etf","30":"tag-ishares-u-s-aerospace-defense-etf","31":"tag-israel","32":"tag-italy","33":"tag-lockheed-martin-corp","34":"tag-lp","35":"tag-merck-co-inc","36":"tag-merck-kgaa","37":"tag-northrop-grumman-corp","38":"tag-reckitt-benckiser-group-plc","39":"tag-spain","40":"tag-tehran","41":"tag-united-states","42":"tag-united-states-oil-fund","43":"tag-universal-music-group-nv","44":"tag-us-bancorp","45":"tag-vanguard-ftse-europe-index-fund-etf-shares","46":"tag-world-economy","47":"tag-world-markets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}