European equities also benefited from the strong positive performance of U.S. equities yesterday, as the Standard & Poor’s and Nasdaq indexes on Wall Street hit their highest closing level in more than eight months, buoyed by growing optimism about the possibility of reaching an agreement on the US debt ceiling within days.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the U.S. Congress, said he was confident a deal could be reached to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, preventing the country from defaulting, in a near future.
In contrast, European equities benefited from company-announced results, as first-quarter results were relatively strong for many large European companies, and about half of the Stoxx 600 companies announced first-quarter results so far. now, and two-thirds of them have exceeded estimates.
Market movements
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index was up 0.4% at 07:08 GMT and is expected to end the week with a slight gain. Mining and financial services stocks were the main gainers among European sectors.
Smith Group also rose 0.8%, after the British engineering group raised its revenue forecast for 2023 after reporting strong third-quarter results.
Germany’s DAX rose 0.3% after ending Thursday’s session at the highest level in 2023, and the index is now within 100 points of its all-time high of 16,290.19, which it recorded in November 2021.
On the other hand, data showed that German producer prices rose slightly more than expected at 4.1% in April on an annual basis, which will probably encourage the European Central Bank to follow the path of further increases in prices. interest rate.
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