European stocks declined yesterday. The European indicator StoxxEurope 600 fell by 1.37%. British FTSE 100 index lost 1.82%, French CAC 40 declined a little less by 1.26%. German DAX and Spanish IBEX 35 fell by about the same amount of 0.9% and 0.83% respectively. Italian FTSE MIB, which lost only 0.09%, lost less of all.
The decline of European indices was expected and followed other world stock markets. Traders are looking to averse risks as they are still concerned about some of the events taking place in the world. Among them is the high inflation rate, which could lead to an economic downturn.
The effects of inflation are also reflected in companies' quarterly reports. To a greater extent, rising prices have affected supplies and transportation costs. All this hurts the potential profits of companies.
Thanks to the announcement of the 5-year extension of the employment contract with the current CEO of Thyssenkrupp, Martina Merz, the company's securities increased by 2.2%.
Due to the reduction of losses in the first half of the year and increased revenues by EasyJet Plc, its share price rose by 0.1%. However, the company warned of impending cost increases in the second half of the year due to higher fuel prices and the strengthened US dollar.
The UK Royal Mail showed an 8.8% drop in pretax profit to £662 million for the fiscal year that ended March 27. Meanwhile, operating profits rose by 8% to £758 million, but were not 7% below experts' expectations. Revenues for the first quarter increased by only 1%, contrary to analysts' forecasts.
As a consequence of a weak quarterly report, the value of Royal Mail securities fell by 12.4%.
At the same time, a significant increase in share prices was demonstrated by Homeserve with the shares going up by 10.2%. This was due to the announcement of the forthcoming major deal on its acquisition by Brookfield Asset Management Inc. for a total amount of £4.08 billion.
Ambu AS also rose by 9.1%, as well as InPost SA, which added 7.1%.
The share price of CNH Industrial fell by 1.9% and its subsidiary Iveco Group declined by 1.5%.
