European Stocks Close Broadly Higher As Investors React To Earnings

(RTTNews) - European stocks closed broadly higher on Tuesday with investors reacting to a spate of corporate earnings announcements, and continuing to assess the U.S. Government's trade policy.

Reports that the U.S. President has proposed lower tariffs on auto parts for U.S.-produced vehicles helped keep investor sentiment positive.

The pan European Stoxx 600 gained 0.36%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 climbed 0.55% and Germany's DAX closed 0.69% up. France's CAC 40 drifted down 0.24%, while Switzerland's SMI gained 0.32%.

Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Portugal ended higher.

Czech Republic, Iceland, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Turkiye cloed weak.

In the UK market, HSBC Holdings climbed about 2.65% as it launched a $3 billion share buyback despite an increasingly fragile geopolitical backdrop.

In its first quarter, profit before tax decreased to $9.48 billion from last year's $12.65 billion, primarily due to the non-recurrence of $3.7 billion in net impacts last year relating to the disposals of banking business in Canada and business in Argentina.

Howden Joinery climbed 4.6%. Entain, BAE Systems, Kingfisher, Standard Chartered, RightMove, JD Sports Fashion and Tesco gained 2.2 to 3.3%. Natwest Group, Easyjet, Reckitt Benckiser, GSK and Croda International also moved up sharply.

AstraZeneca gained nearly 1%.The company reported lower than expected earnings. Looking ahead, for fiscal 2025, AstraZeneca continues to expect total revenue to increase by a high single-digit percentage and core earnings per share to grow in a low double-digit percentage.

In its first quarter, profit before tax climbed 21% to $3.40 billion from last year's $2.80 billion. Profit after tax grew 34 percent to $2.92 billion from $2.18 billion in the prior year. Earnings per share were $1.88, up from $1.41 a year ago.

Associated British Foods tanked more than 9% after reporting that its profit before taxation for the 24 weeks ended 1 March 2025 declined to 692 million pounds from 881 million pounds last year.

BP ended nearly 2.5% down. BP reported profit before tax of $3.13 billion for the first quarter, lower than $4.633 billion in the same quarter a year ago, primarily due to decrease in revenues. Net profit declined to $687 million or 4.27 cents per share from $2.263 billion or 13.25 cents per share last year.

In the German market, Rheinmetall climbed nearly 8% after the auto and defense firm's first-quarter sales beat expectations.

Symrise gained more than 3.5% after the company said it expects to grow above the anticipated annual market growth rate of approximately 3% to 4%. The company continues to expect an organic growth of 5 to 7%, on EBITDA margin of around 21% and a business free cash flow of around 14% in fiscal 2025.

Deutsche Bank gained about 5%. Net profit attributable to Deutsche Bank shareholders for the quarter was 1.78 billion euros, up 39% from 1.28 billion euros last year.

MTU Aero Engines, Siemens Energy, SAP, Brenntag, Daimler Truck Holding and Commerzbank closed notably higher.

HelloFresh gained more than 5%. The meal-kit maker recorded adjusted EBITDA of 58.1 million euros for the first-qiarter, higher than 16.8 million euros, recorded for the same period last year.

Sportswear maker Adidas reported that its net income attributable to shareholders for the first quarter of 2025 climbed to 428 million euros or 2.40 euros per share from 170 million euros or 0.95 euros per share last year. However, the stock ended down more than 3% as the company held back from raising its 2025 financial forecasts, citing tariff uncertainty.

Porsche iclosed lower by 4% after the company cut its forecast for the financial year 2025 due to special effects. For the financial year 2025, the company now expects sales revenue to be between 37 billion euros and 38 billion euros, compared to the previous forecast of 39 billion euros to 40 billion euros. The return on sales is projected to be between 6.5% and 8.5%, down from the earlier forecast of 10% to 12%.

Lufthansa shares closed down by about 4.5% after the group reported that its net loss attributable to shareholders for the first quarter of 2025 widened to 885 million euros or 0.74 euros per share from 734 million euros or 0.61 euros per share last year.

In the French market, Schneider Electric drifted down more than 6% as the electrical equipment maker cut its 2025 implied core profit margin outlook, citing foreign exchange rate fluctuations.

Capgemini rallied nearly 6%. The technology company posted higher revenues in the first quarter of 2025, helped by good performances in the North America, United Kingdom and Ireland regions. The company also reiterated its outlook for the year ahead.

Societe Generale, Dassault Systemes, L'Oreal, Engie, Eurofins Scientific, Thales, Saint-Gobain, Vinci and Unibail Rodamco closed notably higher.

On the economic front, German consumer confidence is set to continue its recovery in May as trade tariff hikes by the US administration had a limited impact, a closely watched survey showed.

The forward-looking consumer sentiment index improved unexpectedly to -20.6 in May from revised -24.3 in the previous month, a survey jointly published by the market research group GfK and the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions showed. The score was expected to fall to -25.6.

A report from the European Commission said the economic sentiment indicator (ESI) in the Euro Area fell to 93.6 in April 2025, down from a revised 95.0 in March and below market expectations of 94.5. This marked the lowest reading since December.. Consumer sentiment dropped sharply (-16.7 vs. -14.5 in March).

On the pricing front, consumer inflation expectations surged by 5.1 points to 29.6, their highest level since November 2022, while manufacturers' selling price expectations edged down by 0.3 points to 11.0, easing from March's two-year high.