LONDON (AP) — European stocks rose Thursday as investors reacted to a slew of gains and continued to monitor developments in Ukraine and Russia’s next move on its gas supplies to Europe.
the pan-european Stoxx 600 rose 1% by late morning, with autos jumping 2.4% to lead gains as nearly all sectors and major stocks entered positive territory.
There was mixed trading for European stocks on Wednesday, with fears lingering over Ukraine and energy supplies to the region following Russia’s decision to stop gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.
gazprom told both countries that it was cutting off supplies because they had refused to pay for gas in rubles, as Moscow recently demanded. The measure pushed up gas prices in Europe and the euro lower, with the single currency falling to a five-year low against the dollar earlier in the day.
Elsewhere, Asia-Pacific stocks rose in Thursday morning tradingas investors in the region watched the market’s reaction to the Bank of Japan’s latest monetary policy decision. US Stock Futures rose in overnight trading as the market shook off the April sell-off and investors reacted positively to Meta Platforms’ gains.
profits in focus
In another busy day for earnings, Sanofi, TotalEnergies, HelloFresh, Banco Sabadell, Barclays, Sainsbury’s, Standard Chartered and Unilever were among the companies reporting on Thursday.
barclays beat earnings expectations thanks to good results from its corporate and investment banking division due to market volatility in the first quarter, but said it had suspended its planned share buyback program due to a costly US trading mistake. Shares rose 1.3% in early trading.
standard charter surged 16% to lead the Stoxx 600 after a strong earnings report, while Swiss software group fear us jumped more than 15% after Bloomberg reported that it had received an acquisition approach from private equity firm Thoma Bravo.
At the bottom of the European blue chip index, the Swedish cloud computing company sync up it plunged more than 19% after its quarterly results.