The Irish stock market outperformed it peers on Thursday, closing up 30 basis points, thanks in part to a good performance by Ryanair. Travel stocks enjoyed a good day across the board with EasyJet and Air France also rising.
Dublin
Ryanair was the standout stock on Thursday rising by 5 per cent, a recovery from its lacklustre performance on Monday. The company finished on €14.49 a share. . Hospitality company Dalata rose by 0.8 per cent finishing at €4.11.
Bank of Ireland had a weak performance on Thursday, losing 2.51 per cent finishing at €10.30, and AIB dropped 1.3 per cent to €5.32 a share. General market weakness across the banking sector saw the stocks lose some of the value they had gained over the past two days.
Food ingredients company Kerry Group was up on the day by 0.8 per cent, finishing at €79.90. . Origin Enterprises finished the day up 3 per cent on €3.14.
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London
The FTSE 100 ended slightly higher after upbeat earnings from Unilever helped counter losses in precious metal miners on the back of a slump in gold prices. The blue-chip F index closed up 0.4 per cent, rebounding from a three-month low hit earlier in the session.
Unilever climbed 6.2 per cent to a near four-year high after the Dove soap maker beat profit estimates for the first half of the year, boosted by resilient pricing.
Mining company Centamin slipped 7.7 per cent after it announced its interim results and left its 2024 outlook unchanged, while Rentokil dropped 1.4 per cent after the pest-control firm reported its interim half-yearly results.
Centrica slipped to the bottom of the FTSE 100 with a 9.9 per cent decline after the energy company reported a fall in first-half adjusted operating profit.
Europe
European shares closed lower as a slate of downbeat earnings reports in several sectors including tech and luxury weighed, while a global run for safe haven assets further exacerbated losses. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index closed 0.7 per cent lower, though well off session lows, after hitting its lowest for over two months intraday.
Media shares declined 3 per cent, the most among big Stoxx 600 sectors, dragged by a 23.5 per cent slide in Universal Music Group after the world’s biggest music label reported lower-than-expected streaming and subscription revenue for the second quarter.
The tech sector lost 2.8 per cent, with Dutch chipmaking parts supplier BE Semiconductor Industries tumbling 14 per cent after forecasting flat third-quarter sales, which fell below market expectations.
Europe’s automobile shares lost 1.7 per cent, dragged by a 8.7 per cent tumble in Stellantis after the carmaker delivered worse-than-expected first-half results.
Renault retreated 7.5 per cent after alliance partner Nissan slashed its full-year outlook after its first-quarter profit was almost completely wiped.
Nestlé fell 5.1 per cent after it lowered its sales outlook, while Kering lost 7.5 per cent after the French luxury group reported a bigger-than-expected drop in second-quarter sales and forecast a weak second half of the year.
New York
Wall Street’s main indices rose on Thursday, with the Nasdaq and the S&P reversing early losses while the Dow and small-cap stocks outperformed, as stronger-than-expected GDP data provided some relief after the previous session’s tech mauling.
Most megacap stocks were set to extend losses, with Microsoft, Nvidia and Meta down between 0.5 per cent and 1.6 per cent.
While Alphabet’s shares were down 0.5 per cent, Tesla was up 3 per cent. Lacklustre earnings from the Google parent and the EV maker had pummeled the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of tech stocks on Wednesday, prompting the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 to log their worst day since 2022. – additional reporting Reuters
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