PARIS / LONDON (dpa-AFX) – Europe’s most important stock market indices said goodbye to trading on Tuesday, thanks to a tailwind from New York. However, the willingness to buy was limited before the important interest rate decisions by the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.
The EuroStoxx 50 (EURO STOXX 50) made it late with the friendly US stock exchanges and closed 0.12 percent higher at 4163.45 points. A good month on the stock market ended in a rather unspectacular way – after the weak previous year, the leading index of the euro zone was able to recover by almost ten percent in January. France’s CAC 40 was up 0.01 percent on the day at 7082.42 points on Tuesday, while Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.17 percent to 7771.70 points.
Analyst Michael Hewson from broker CMC Markets UK commented that the caution about the interest rate decisions in New York, Frankfurt and London, which was already observed at the beginning of the week. As soon as these are through, there is also some reason to hope that share prices in Europe will continue to rise. He pointed out, for example, that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its forecast for this year’s economic growth in the euro zone, among other things.
In the market-wide European Stoxx Europe 600, the sub-index of interest-sensitive real estate stocks was under the most pressure on Tuesday at minus 1.2 percent. The index of technology companies did comparatively well with plus 0.1 percent, which once again benefited from the strength of the trend-setting US tech stock exchange Nasdaq.
The technology group AMS Osram (ams) presented itself as a negative outlier with a minus of 4.4 percent after a surprising change at the top of the company that caused uncertainty. Alexander Everke resigned from his post after seven years. His successor is Aldo Kamper, who is returning to AMS Osram from the German automotive supplier LEONI.
Figures from the banking sector were mixed. The Italian UniCredit achieved a surprisingly significant increase in earnings in 2022 thanks to higher interest rates, numerous savings measures and lower provisions for loan defaults, which gave the share price a jump of more than twelve percent. In their wake, the local competitor Intesa Sanpaolo took the top spot in the EuroStoxx with a price increase of 2.8 percent.
In contrast, the shares of UBS in Zurich lost a good two percent. The largest Swiss bank clearly exceeded expectations with its quarterly results. Not all analysts were enthusiastic, however. The adjusted pre-tax profit was only in line with market expectations, according to Jefferies./gl/jha/