Source: Sharecast
The pan-regional Stoxx 600 index closed up 0.67% to 644.43, with most major bourses also ending higher, including Germany’s Dax and France’s CAC 40, which finished up 0.94% and 0.28% respectively.
Britain’s FTSE 100 reversed morning losses after an initial fall triggered by reports that chancellor John Healey was set to increase taxes on bank profits in his upcoming budget to raise much needed cash. The news sent shares in Barclays, NatWest and Lloyds Banking Group slightly lower, but a shift into defensive stocks saw the blue chip index close in the black.
In the US, however, the tech sell-off continued, and as at 1715 BST, both the Dow Jones and Nasdaq were in negative territory. Investors around the world have become increasingly concerned about the sky high valuations of artificial intelligence-focused stocks, and have been selling down holdings.
In European corporate news, shares in Schneider Electric fell despite the French industrial group raising its 2026 core profit and revenue targets for the second time this year, as it looks to cash in on supplying power to cloud companies building AI data centres.
Chipmaker Aixtron jumped after beating order intake estimates for the third quarter, while Germany’s Nordex surged as the onshore wind turbine maker posted a better-than-expected third-quarter core profit.
On the economic front, Eurozone inflation was confirmed at a three-year high in September, according to Eurostat’s final estimates, as price growth accelerated sharply on the back of surging energy prices.
The annual change in the harmonised consumer price index was 3.8% last month, in line with the preliminary estimate released two weeks ago but much higher than the 3.2% rate seen in August.
It was the steepest annual rate of inflation across the single-currency bloc since September 2023. On a monthly basis, consumer prices increased by 0.6%.
Energy prices were the biggest driver, rising 18.9% year-on-year after growing by 14.3% in August, contributing 1.71 percentage points to the overall annual inflation rate.