By Nikhil Sharma
(Reuters) – European shares were at a record high on Thursday, supported by strong earnings for Nestle and Siemens, amid broader market optimism over the U.S.’ plans to begin talks with Russia to end the nearly three-year-long war in Ukraine.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index was up 0.3%, as of 0940 GMT, its sixth straight session of intraday record highs.
Meanwhile, the German benchmark index and EURO STOXX index were also at all-time highs, rising 1% and 0.7%, respectively, in early trades. France’s CAC 40, up 0.9%, was trading at its highest level since May.
Britain’s blue-chip index, however, shed 0.8%, primarily dragged by a 7% fall in Unilever.
The Ben & Jerry’s maker picked Amsterdam as its primary listing venue for its ice cream business, with London and New York as secondary listings, while it also posted a weak annual sales outlook.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed a desire for peace in separate phone calls with him on Wednesday.
The euro jumped 0.35% to $1.0418 after Trump ordered top U.S. officials to begin peace talks.
“It’s hard to see how all this optimism can be maintained sort of through later in the year when more of this peace deal might be fleshed out with implications for Europe’s defence spending particularly,” said Bas van Geffen, senior macro strategist at RaboResearch Global Economics & Markets.
On the day, Nestle jumped 6% after the Nescafe coffee maker reported slightly better-than-expected annual sales growth, boosting the food and beverages index by 2.4%.
Automobiles led the sectoral gains and soared 3.6%, helped by a 5.1% jump in French tyre maker Michelin’s full-year results.
Siemens advanced 6.1% after the engineering group reported better-than-expected profit for its first quarter.
Legrand surged 5.9% to top the CAC 40 index as the French electrical equipment maker reported full-year results above consensus.
Adyen jumped 13.8% to an over two-year high with the Dutch payments company reporting full-year core earnings above market expectations.
Capping gains, oil and gas index fell 1.5% after Neste dropped 11.1% as Finnish oil refiner and biofuel maker reported a slump in quarterly core profit. The company said it will cut around 600 jobs.
Shares of Embracer’s slid 12.6% after Swedish games developer missed third-quarter operating profit as higher user acquisition costs in mobile games and weaker-than-expected box office performance weighed on results.
(Reporting by Nikhil Sharma; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Vijay Kishore)
