The conclusion of last week saw Europe’s primary stock indices balance out, although they had impressive growth throughout the week which resulted in record peaks, particularly for French and German shares. Investors also took their cues from the US employment report, analysing its implication on the international monetary policy scenario.
DUBLIN
The week’s closure indicated that the index of shares in Ireland was relatively neutral, similar to its continental neighbours. Bank of Ireland’s shares mirrored the pattern, idling on the final day of the week and closing at €8.74. AIB, however, showed a positive performance, expanding by 1.23%, while Permanent TSB increased by nearly 1.8% after suffering a drop in the aftermath of the announcement of its annual results.
Kingspan, the insulation behemoth, saw a near 1% enhancement in its stock value over the day, culminating at €85.76. Shares in Smurfit Kappa accumulated gains of 1.1% throughout the session.
Food heavyweight, the Kerry Group, experienced a minor decrease in its shares. The organisation’s shares have been falling consistently since July 2021. Earlier, it revealed that new share options were provided to its senior officials as part of the company’s bonus scheme.
LONDON
The globally oriented FTSE 100 experienced a minor drop of 0.4% on the day and registered its third consecutive week of losses. The FTSE 250 index, however, got a boost from an anticipated annual budget statement, and increased by 1.3% over the course of the week, also inching up by 0.1% for the day.
Aerospace and defence stocks experienced sectoral losses, severing a seven-day victory streak, decreasing by 1.1%. This loss was fuelled by the Melrose shares’ underperformance, in light of the supply chain challenges it warned of at the beginning of the week.
Focusing on individual stocks, DS Smith surged by 5.2%, representing the benchmark increases, following Mondi’s provisional consensus to purchase the company in an all-share deal, valued at £5.14 billion. This announcement led to Mondi’s shares dipping by 2.3%.
Informa saw a marginal increase of 0.3% after the event planning company lifted its earning predictions for the present year and projected a positive 2023 profit. Entain, on the other hand, fell by 5.4% at FTSE 100’s bottom, deepening the losses from the prior session when the betting conglomerate anticipated its 2024 profits to be impacted by regulatory modifications.
The STOXX 600, a pan-European stock index, ended at a record level, marking its seventh consecutive week of gains. On Friday, France’s main CAC 40 index reached a new peak, while Germany’s DAX achieved its highest-ever level in the preceding session.
The technology sector reported a decline of 1.6%, triggered by BE Semiconductor collapsing by 16.1% due to the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council downgrading some chip standards, which could potentially postpone investments in hybrid bonding technologies.
The financial services index enjoyed a 1.1% increase, helped by UBS’s 4% surge. This comes after Morgan Stanley promoted UBS – Switzerland’s largest bank – from “equal weight” to “overweight”. It is also anticipated that UBS, in association with Credit Suisse, will shutter 85 Swiss branches by 2025.
Sadly, HelloFresh, the German meal-kit firm, plunged 42.1% after its 2024 core revenue projections fell short of market anticipations significantly.
In New York, despite the chip stocks losing momentum, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 indices descended on Friday. There were mixed reactions to the labour market news that despite employers in February creating more jobs than anticipated, there was an unexpected rise in the jobless rate.
Nvidia, the AI front-runner, experienced a 1.5% drop. This was the largest decline within mega-cap growth and tech counterparts after it established a new all-time high. Broadcom, on the other hand, declined 5.6% because their full-year prediction disappointed investors.
Marvell Technology’s shares slumped by 9.1%. The firm’s Q1 outlook, which fell below predictions, was blamed on weak demand across its consumer, enterprise, and wireless infrastructure markets.
On the contrary, shares in Gap rose by 5.1% on the back of the retailer exceeding Wall Street’s Q4 expectations. Improved product selection across its Old Navy and Gap brands during the holiday season, coupled with fewer markdowns, contributed to healthy customer demand.