{"id":611242,"date":"2025-12-04T08:18:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T08:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/611242\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T08:18:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T08:18:13","slug":"european-markets-open-higher-ukraine-peace-talks-in-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/611242\/","title":{"rendered":"European markets open higher; Ukraine peace talks in focus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON \u2014 European stocks opened in positive territory on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The pan-European <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/.STOXX\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stoxx 600<\/a> was almost 0.3% higher at the opening bell, with all major bourses in the green but sectors mixed.<\/p>\n<p>Apparel companies book-ended the benchmark on Wednesday. Zara&#8217;s parent company\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/ITX-ES\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Inditex<\/a>\u00a0led the benchmark after it reported strong nine-month results, closing the session 10% higher, and extended gains on Thursday as it edged up 0.2%<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/BOSS-DE\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hugo Boss<\/a>, meanwhile, shed 10% in the previous session after lowering its guidance. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/8JO-FF\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Volvo Cars<\/a> on Wednesday reported a 10% drop in sales in November year-on-year. It sold 60,244 cars in November and saw growth only in its fully electric models, which Chief Commercial Officer Erik Severinson said was &#8220;encouraging&#8221; despite U.S. sales remaining &#8220;subdued&#8221; after the phase-out of EV tax credits.<\/p>\n<p>Shares of Jeep owner\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/STLA\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stellantis<\/a>\u00a0advanced 0.4%, further cementing gains from the previous session, after Swiss investment bank UBS upgraded the stock to a Buy rating and advised investors to bet on the firm&#8217;s &#8220;American comeback.&#8221; UBS said it expects Stellantis to regain market share by around 120 basis points year-on-year in 2026, adding that the car maker would also get a boost from relaxed U.S. emissions standards and internal cost cutting measures<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ukraine-Russia peace negotiations continue as Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine&#8217;s national security council, is expected to meet U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff\u00a0for talks in Miami on Thursday. It comes after discussions held between Russia and the U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/12\/03\/russia-ready-for-war-with-europe-putin-says-before-ukraine-peace-talks.html?&amp;qsearchterm=putin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">failed to deliver a breakthrough<\/a> on Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p>French President Emmanuel Macron is in Beijing on Thursday for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The French leader is expected to urge his Chinese counterpart to do more to cooperate on Ukraine resolution. <\/p>\n<p>It follows moves by the European Union to use frozen Russian assets as a &#8216;reparations loan&#8217; to Ukraine, though the idea has been blocked in previous attempts. <\/p>\n<p>On currency, the euro hit a seven-week high against the dollar on Wednesday at 1.167 as the dollar continues to see some depreciating despite somewhat stabilizing in the second half of the year. <\/p>\n<p>There are a handful of data releases today including European HCOB Construction PMI and retail sales, and U.K. car sales. <\/p>\n<p>Asia-Pacific <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/12\/04\/asia-pacific-markets-today-thursday-ai-tech-nikkei-225-hang-seng-index-csi-300.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">markets mostly rose<\/a> Thursday as global investors look ahead to the Federal Reserve&#8217;s interest rate decision on Dec. 10.<\/p>\n<p>Markets are pricing a roughly 89% chance of a rate cut during the upcoming meeting, which is much higher than the odds from mid-November, according to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cmegroup.com\/markets\/interest-rates\/cme-fedwatch-tool.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CME FedWatch tool<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Stateside, stock futures were little changed Wednesday night. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/@DJ.1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0added 65 points, or 0.14%.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/@SP.1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">S&amp;P futures<\/a>\u00a0hovered above the flatline, while\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/@ND.1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nasdaq 100 futures<\/a>\u00a0fell less than 0.1%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 European stocks opened in positive territory on Thursday. The pan-European Stoxx 600 was almost 0.3% higher&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[4959,3085,7426,7425,4750,2000,299,1880,38339,2441,332,7070,5191,657,49,31987],"class_list":{"0":"post-611242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-breaking-news-markets","9":"tag-business-news","10":"tag-cac-40-index","11":"tag-dax","12":"tag-economic-events","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-ftse-100","16":"tag-hugo-boss-ag","17":"tag-markets","18":"tag-russia","19":"tag-steve-witkoff","20":"tag-stoxx-600","21":"tag-ukraine","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-volvo-car-ab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115660318620470208","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611242","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=611242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}