European equities ended slightly lower on Friday as technology shares pulled back and pharmaceutical stocks declined. The STOXX Europe 50 slipped 0.1% from Thursday’s record high to 6,541, while the broader STOXX Europe 600 fell 0.2% to 658.
Among tech names, ASML eased 0.2%, paring its strong gains from earlier in the week as investors continued to evaluate hyperscalers’ capital expenditure on AI infrastructure, with both Anthropic and OpenAI expected to go public later this year. Infineon also weakened, losing 1.3%.
The pharmaceutical sector had a negative session, with Argenx down 3.2% and Sanofi off 1.2%.
In contrast, banks and insurers mostly advanced despite a sharp rise in European sovereign bond yields, particularly at the long end of the curve, as expectations firmed that the Federal Reserve may tolerate higher inflation for longer. Among financials, Deutsche Bank and Intesa Sanpaolo each gained nearly 1%, while insurers Allianz and Munich Re climbed more than 1%.
