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<\/p>\nBritish Pound reaches highest level since October 2021<\/p>\n
The British Pound has strengthened against the U.S. dollar to reach $1.3735, its highest level since October 2021.<\/p>\n
Data pointing to a sticky inflation environment in the country on June 18 has since pushed Sterling up by 2.4%.<\/p>\n
Stock Chart IconStock chart icon<\/p>\n
European stocks open higher<\/p>\n
A bull statue and a bear statue stand outside the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on April 7, 2025 in Frankfurt, Germany.<\/p>\n
Florian Wiegand | Getty Images News | Getty Images<\/p>\n
We’re around 10 minutes into Thursday’s trading session, and stocks are edging higher.<\/p>\n
The pan-European Stoxx 600 was last seen trading around 0.4% higher, with most sectors in positive territory.<\/p>\n
Germany’s DAX<\/a> is leading gains among major bourses, with the index adding around 0.5%.<\/p>\n \u2014 Chloe Taylor<\/p>\n Shell says it has not been ‘actively considering’ BP bid<\/p>\n Shell<\/a> on Thursday stressed it has no immediate intention of putting a bid in for embattled British peer BP<\/a>, after a Wall Street Journal report of takeover talks between the two oil majors.<\/p>\n “In response to recent media speculation Shell wishes to clarify that it has not been actively considering making an offer for BP and confirms it has not made an approach to, and no talks have taken place with, BP with regards to a possible offer,” Shell said in a statement.<\/p>\n BP shares had surged more than 10% in the previous session after the Wall Street Journal reported early talks toward the company’s acquisition by Shell.<\/p>\n “This is further market speculation. No talks are taking place,” a Shell spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday in an initial response.<\/p>\n Investors have been waiting to see whether Shell \u2014 or other oil giants such as Chevron<\/a>, Exxon Mobil<\/a> or the United Arab Emirates’ Adnoc \u2014 would leap to take over BP, which has been underperforming its rivals in recent years and battled to find a strategic direction amid the green energy transition.<\/p>\n \u2014 Ruxandra Iordache<\/p>\n H&M posts weaker-than-expected quarterly sales<\/p>\n Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford on 5th June 2025 in London, United Kingdom. <\/p>\n Mike Kemp | In Pictures | Getty Images<\/p>\n Swedish clothing giant\u00a0H&M<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday reported weaker-than-expected sales in the fiscal second quarter but pointed to an uptick in demand to kick-start the summer season.<\/p>\n Revenues at the world’s second-largest clothing retailer dipped year-on-year to 56.71 billion Swedish krona ($5.99 billion) in the three-month period to May. 31, slightly below the 57.01 billion Swedish krona forecast by LSEG analysts.<\/p>\n Read more here.<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Karen Gilchrist<\/p>\n Here are the opening calls<\/p>\n The London skyline on Sept. 15, 2023.<\/p>\n Yui Mok – Pa Images | Pa Images | Getty Images<\/p>\n Good morning from London, and welcome to CNBC’s live blog covering all the action in European financial markets on Thursday, and the latest regional and global business news, data and earnings.<\/p>\n Futures data from IG suggests a positive start for European markets, with London’s\u00a0FTSE<\/a>\u00a0looking set to open 0.2% lower at 8,699, Germany’s\u00a0DAX<\/a>\u00a0down 0.3% at 23,509, France’s\u00a0CAC 40<\/a>\u00a0up slightly at 7,568 and Italy’s\u00a0FTSE MIB<\/a> flat at 49,421.<\/p>\n Global markets continue to monitor the ongoing ceasefire between Israel and Iran, and NATO’s decision on Wednesday to hike defense spending from 2% to 5% of gross domestic product by 2035<\/a>, a move which caused European defense companies to pop. Overnight, Asia-Pacific markets<\/a> mostly declined, while U.S. stock futures<\/a> were relatively unchanged.<\/p>\n \u2014 Holly Ellyatt<\/p>\n What to keep an eye on today<\/p>\n A close-up view of the illuminated red H&M logo in front of a display of women’s summer dresses and casual apparel at a retail store.<\/p>\n Cheng Xin | Getty Images News | Getty Images<\/p>\n It’s a reasonably quiet day for European data releases, but we’re due to get the latest H&M earnings this morning, as well as Germany’s GfK consumer confidence figures.<\/p>\n \u2014 Holly Ellyatt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British Pound reaches highest level since October 2021 The British Pound has strengthened against the U.S. dollar to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3091],"tags":[5189,51,3085,2441,5191,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-215395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-breaking-news-europe","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-business-news","11":"tag-markets","12":"tag-stoxx-600","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114748706899911087","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}