On Friday, European stocks closed higher, as encouraging economic data pushed several markets, such as France, to multi-year or all-time highs. This surge was partly due to an increase in French consumer confidence in January and an easing of inflation in the euro zone. The release of the U.S. consumer price inflation data also contributed to the markets' robust performance.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 rose by 1.11%. The UK's FTSE 100 increased by 1.4%, Germany's DAX went up by 0.32% and France's CAC 40 surged by 2.28% to a record closing high. Meanwhile, Switzerland's SMI closed higher by 1.62%.
Other European markets, such as Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey also saw increases. In contrast, Portugal ended weaker, while Iceland remained stable.
In the UK market, Diageo's stocks soared over 5% after a promising sales report from French luxury goods company LVMH boosted the spirits. Shares in other companies like Croda International, Burberry Group, Vodafone, St. James's Place, Rentokil Initial, Spirax-Sarco Engineering, and Beazley also rose by 3% to 5%.
However, stocks in Centrica fell by more than 3%, stocks in J Sainsbury declined by 2.7%, while shares in SSE, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, and BAE Systems lost 1.3% to 2%.
Turning to Germany, shares of Sartorius and Merck soared by more than 9% and 5.3%, respectively. Meanwhile, Porsche and Zalando saw nearly a 3.5% increase. On the other hand, stocks in RWE plummeted nearly 7%, while Bayer and Deutsche Boerse lost 1.3% and 1%, respectively.
French luxury group LVMH saw a nearly 13% increase in its shares after reporting a 10% rise in fourth-quarter sales, largely owing to high demand, particularly from Chinese consumers. Remy Cointreau's stocks surged more than 15% following a smaller-than-anticipated drop in third-quarter sales.
The French consumer confidence indicator for January rose to 91, versus December's reading of 89, according to data from INSEE. Meanwhile, inflation expectations for the euro zone were revised down for this year and the next as a result of oil prices, weaker economic activity and lower-than-anticipated inflation figures, as revealed by the Survey of Professional Forecasters from the European Central Bank.
Finally, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that consumer prices in December were higher by 2.6% compared to the same period the previous year. This matched the increase observed in November and met economists' estimates. Meanwhile, the annual growth rate of core consumer prices (excluding food and energy prices) slowed to 2.9% in December from 3.2% in November. Analysts had predicted a slowdown to 3%.
