PARIS/LONDON (dpa-AFX) – The European Central Bank’s (ECB) inflation forecast encouraged investors to take action on the European stock exchanges on Thursday. The driving force was that inflation in the Eurozone is likely to decline more quickly than previously expected. Europe’s most valuable company Novo Nordisk also contributed to the euphoria with its continued record run.
The EuroStoxx 50 (EURO STOXX 50) ended trading at 4974.22 points, close to the daily high. He had thus increased his share price to 1.19 percent. The Eurozone’s leading index is just 26 points short of reaching the 5,000-point mark for the first time since 2000.
The CAC 40 has already passed the next thousand threshold: the French leading index jumped over the 8,000 mark for the first time. It crossed the finish line 0.77 percent higher at 8016.22 points. The FTSE 100 showed that the rally was mainly concentrated in the Eurozone. The British leading index only increased relatively moderately by 0.17 percent to 7,692.46 points.
The European Central Bank (ECB) is holding off on the first despite the inflation outlook Interest rate cut away. A change of course could take place at the June meeting, according to the central bank president Christine Lagarde after the meeting of the Governing Council of the ECB. “As expected, the ECB remains true to its data-driven approach and decides from meeting to meeting,” said portfolio manager Konstantin Veit from Pimco. He expects three rate cuts this year, starting in June or later.
Novo Nordisk boosted the entire pharmaceutical sector with a price jump of more than eight percent. The company had reported promising data from an early clinical trial of a weight loss supplement in tablet form. In the ranking of the most valuable European stock exchange companies, Novo expanded its lead over LVMH (LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton).
Technology stocks were among the biggest winners in a sector comparison. They followed the particularly pronounced industry recovery on the US stock exchanges. There were also significant overall increases in the raw materials sector. Here, the industry stocks reacted to economic data from China, an important consumer of raw materials. Chinese foreign trade continued to recover in the first two months of the year.
In the EuroStoxx, three technology stocks, ASML (ASML NV), Infineon and Adyen (Adyen BV Parts Sociales), took the lead with price gains of up to 4.1 percent.
This was immediately followed by the utility Iberdrola (Iberdrola SA) with an increase of 2.6 percent. The US investment bank Morgan Stanley upgraded the share to “Overweight” before a capital market day. In his study, analyst Robert Pulleyn spoke of a good entry point. Iberdrola also wants to take over the outstanding shares in the US subsidiary Avangrid./tih/jha/