European stocks were mixed this Friday, with investors proceeding with caution after recent record highs. These developments transpired alongside new regional economic data and corporate news updates.
The Federal Reserve's decision to maintain its rates on Wednesday, coupled with predictions of three rate reductions this year, were key events that grabbed investor attention. Other significant news included the Bank of England's potential rate reduction hint and the Swiss National Bank's surprise rate cut.
Though the pan-European Stoxx 600 marginally dipped, the UK's FTSE 100 rose by 0.7%, Germany's DAX edged 0.06% higher, and France's CAC 40 slipped by 0.25%. Meanwhile, Switzerland's SMI trailed by 0.25%.
Among the individual markets, the UK's Phoenix Group Holdings surged almost 10% after the company announced a pretax profit for 2023. They reported a year-on-year increase in cash generation—from 1.504 billion pounds to 2.024 billion pounds.
Other companies, such as Reckitt Benckiser, Natwest Group, Lloyds Banking, Prudential, and WPP, witnessed rises of between 1.3-2%. Similarly, Germany's Siemens Energy, Sartorius, Deutsche Post, Vonovia, and Zalando saw increases ranging from 2-3%, while Infineon, Puma, BMW, Munich RE, and Continental experienced small declines.
On the French front, Teleperformance rose more than 2%, whereas companies including Carrefour, BNP Paribas, WorldLine, Sanofi, and Edenred saw increases between 1-1.8%. However, Air Liquide, Kering, Hermes International, LVMH, and STMicroElectronics faced notable losses.
According to data from the Office for National Statistics, UK retail sales remained steady in February after a 3.6% improvement in January. Predictions had suggested a 0.4% fall. The report also indicated a 0.2% monthly growth, a slowdown from the 3.4% rise in January.
Meanwhile, although UK consumer confidence remained static in March, households reported a positive outlook regarding their future personal financial statuses for the first time since 2021.
Additionally, import prices in Germany fell 5.9% YoY in January, a slower pace than the 7% decrease in December. Notably, this marks the first data release after the rebasing of import and export prices to the new 2021 baseline.
Finally, German business confidence grew in March, as per survey results from the ifo Institute. The business sentiment index outperformed the forecast, climbing to 87.8 in March from 85.5 in February.
