This was CNBC’s live blog covering European markets.
European markets closed higher on Wednesday as investors in the region monitored a series of corporate earnings releases.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 was 0.5% higher for the trading day, with the technology sector leading gains by 2% and recouping most losses from earlier in the week.
Truck makers Daimler Trucks, Iveco and Volvo were among the top 10 risers in the index after the latter reported a 24% increase in order intake in Europe and U.S for the fourth quarter of 2024.
Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML‘s shares ended the day 5.6% higher after it reported better-than-expected net sales and profit for the fourth quarter. Net bookings, a key indicator of order demand, rose 169% from the previous quarter.
The world’s largest luxury company LVMH also outperformed sales forecasts in earnings published after the market close Tuesday. However, sales declines in some of the firm’s crucial divisions, including fashion and wines and spirits, did little to convince investors of an imminent recovery in the luxury goods sector.
LVMH‘s Paris-listed stock fell 5%, while fellow luxury goods stock Kering shed 6% to tumble to the bottom of the Stoxx 600.
Top posts
- ASML CEO: Not hearing from customers regarding DeepSeek impact | view post
- Norway’s sovereign wealth fund posts record $222 billion profit | view post
- Shares of LVMH drop 5% on underwhelming full-year results | view post
Global market attention turns to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s first interest rate decision of 2025 on Wednesday.
Fed funds futures data reflect a nearly 100% certainty that the central bank will keep rates steady at a target range of 4.25% to 4.50%, according to CME Group data. Nonetheless, the decision, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference afterward, will be closely watched for more clues on the outlook for interest rates this year.
Europe stock markets close higher
European stocks markets largely closed higher Wednesday as corporate earnings come into focus for investors.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index and Italy’s MIB closed up 0.5%, Germany’s Dax rose 0.9% and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 was tentatively higher by 0.3%. France’s CAC 40 was the only laggard losing 0.4% for the day.
– Ganesh Rao
Stocks open little changed ahead of January FOMC meeting
Stocks opened little changed to kick off Wednesday’s trading session.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite shed 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded marginally lower.
— Lisa Kailai Han
Germany slashes growth outlook
The German government on Wednesday slashed its gross domestic product forecast to just 0.3% growth in 2025.
“The diagnosis is serious,” Robert Habeck, economy and climate minister, said during a press conference, according to a CNBC translation. He noted that, while there are some positive developments such as rising demand for credit, “Germany is stuck in stagnation.”
— Sophie Kiderlin
UK assets move after finance minister speaks
Rachel Reeves, U.K. chancellor of the exchequer, delivers a speech on growth at the Siemens Healthineers factory near Oxford, UK, on Jan. 29, 2025.
The British pound was 0.2% lower against the dollar on Wednesday, trading at around $1.2414 at 11:26 a.m. London time.
It came after U.K. Finance Minister Rachel Reeves gave a widely anticipated speech on economic growth in Oxfordshire, England, in which she pledged to go “further and faster” to kickstart Britain’s sluggish economy and backed an expansion of major London hub Heathrow Airport.
Meanwhile, the yields on gilts — U.K. government bonds — edged lower, losing around 4 basis points across the board.
London’s FTSE 100 stock index was up 0.3% during late morning trades.
— Chloe Taylor
UK finance minister backs Heathrow Airport expansion to boost economy
Rachel Reeves, UK Finance Minister, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 22, 2025.
U.K. Finance Minister Rachel Reeves on Wednesday unveiled plans to deliver a shot in the arm for the country’s ailing economy, signaling she backs the long-delayed expansion of one of the world’s busiest airports.
In a major growth speech in Oxfordshire, Reeves said that a third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport was “badly needed,” adding it would boost investment, support economic expansion and could create as many as 100,000 jobs.
Reeves said “low growth is not our destiny. But growth will not come without a fight.” She promised to go “further and faster” to fulfil what she’s called her “number one priority” of kickstarting the U.K.’s economy.
— Holly Ellyatt and Sam Meredith
ASML CEO: Not hearing from customers regarding DeepSeek impact
Christophe Fouquet, CEO of ASML, at the Bloomberg Tech Summit in London, UK, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024.
Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML expects new low-cost models like the one rolled out by China’s DeepSeek to lead to more — rather than less — demand for AI chips, CEO Christophe Fouquet told CNBC Wednesday.
ASML beat estimates on both sales and profit for the fourth quarter and said it had an order backlog of roughly 36 billion euros ($37.4 billion) at the end of 2024. The news prompted a jump in the firm’s shares as investor fears that DeepSeek’s model could cool semiconductor spending ebbed.
Without addressing the specifics of DeepSeek’s newly revealed R1 model — which took the tech world by storm with performance benchmarks rivalling leading U.S. players at a fraction of the cost — Fouquet said that he sees no sign of a slowdown in demand for AI-focused chips.
“A lower cost of AI could mean more applications. More applications means more demand over time. We see that as an opportunity for more chips demand,” Fouquet said in an interview with CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal.
WATCH: CNBC’s full interview with ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet
– Ryan Browne
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund posts record $222 billion profit
Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, during a news conference in Oslo, Norway, on Jan. 29, 2025.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund — the largest of its kind in the world — posted full-year profit of 2.5 trillion kroner ($222.4 billion) on Wednesday, fueled by a tech rally.
The Government Pension Global Fund was valued at 19.7 trillion kroner at the end of 2024, Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) said in an earnings report. The fund’s return on investment came in at 13% for the year, 45 basis points lower than the return on its benchmark index.
— Chloe Taylor
Swedish Riksbank cuts interest rates by 25 basis points
The Swedish Riksbank on Wednesday said it was reducing interest rates by 25 basis points, putting the policy rate at 2.25%. This was in line with market expectations.
“Given that the risk of inflation becoming too high is limited, at the same time as economic activity is weak, the Executive Board assesses that it is appropriate to cut the policy rate now,” the central bank said in a statement.
Rate cuts made so far have had a “positive impact” on the finances of households and companies, but “they have yet to reach full impact on interest expenses and demand in the economy,” it said.
Looking ahead, the central bank said that forecasts for the policy rate made in December effectively held up, but that it was “prepared to act” if expectations for inflation and economic activity changed. The Riksbank last month had said that it expected just one more rate cut in this cycle, likely in the first half of 2025.
— Sophie Kiderlin
Volvo shares up over 3%
Swedish truck maker Volvo Group on Wednesday reported weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter operating profit but posted a significant upswing in order intake.
Adjusted operating profit for the final three months of the year came in at 14.04 billion Swedish krona ($1.28 billion), down from 16.98 billion krona in the same period a year earlier. The print was also below an analyst forecast of 14.51 billion, Reuters reported, citing data compiled by LSEG.
Volvo Group’s fourth-quarter net order intake increased by 24% to 61,200 vehicles, primarily driven by larger fleets in eastern Europe and demand for vocational trucks in the U.S.
Shares of the company rose 3.5% on the news, hitting a new 52-week high.
— Sam Meredith
Spanish economy grows more than expected in fourth quarter of 2024
Spain’s gross domestic product rose 0.8% in the fourth quarter of 2024 from the previous quarter, the country’s statistics office INE said Wednesday.
This was more than the 0.6% forecast by analysts polled by Reuters, and was the same pace as that seen in the previous quarter.
INE on Wednesday also said that it was estimating 3.2% GDP growth for the full year 2024. Spain has become somewhat of an outlier in Europe as economic growth among other major economies in the region, such as Germany, has been more sluggish.
The Spanish data comes ahead of several other key GDP releases from across Europe that are due throughout the week, including the economic growth figures for the euro area which are due Thursday.
— Sophie Kiderlin
Shares of LVMH drop 5% on underwhelming full-year results
A photograph taken on April 23, 2024 shows a view of the new Louis Vuitton luxury shop belonging to French luxury group LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, on the Champs Elysee avenue in Paris.
Shares of luxury goods giant LVMH dropped almost 5% on Wednesday as investors reacted cautiously to the group’s slightly better-than-expected full-year results.
The owner of brands including Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon and Hennessy posted revenues of 84.68 billion euros ($88.27 billion) for 2024, exceeding the 84.38 billion euros forecast by LSEG analysts and equating to organic growth of 1% versus the previous year.
Shares were down 4.8% by 8:10 a.m. London time.
Investors have been looking for further confirmation of a recovery in the luxury sector after Cartier owner Richemont earlier this month reported its “highest ever” quarterly sales figure over the festive shopping period.
However, declining sales in LVMH’s critical fashion and leather goods and wines and spirits segments pointed to continued pressure within the group.
— Karen Gilchrist
Critical chip firm ASML posts quarterly bookings surge on heated AI demand
Dutch semiconductor giant ASML on Wednesday reported a big jump in fourth-quarter net bookings, suggesting strong demand for its advanced chipmaking tools even as DeepSeek’s low-cost model raises concerns over AI spending.
Here’s how ASML did versus LSEG consensus estimates for the fourth quarter:
- Net sales: 9.26 billion euros versus 9.07 billion euros expected.
- Net profit: 2.69 billion euros versus 2.64 billion euros expected.
— Ryan Browne
Broad indexes would suffer in 2025 if tech falters, but average stock hold up, Capital Economics says
Broad stock market indexes would suffer in 2025 if Big Tech leaders continue to falter but the average stock is likely to “hold up well,” according to Capital Economics senior markets economist James Reilly.
Although the S&P 500 Information Technology Index slid 5.5% Monday, its largest one-day decline since 2020, “the losses were largely confined to firms that had been expected to play a key role in facilitating AI, including semiconductor firms and utilities firms powering data centers,” London-based Capital Economics said, noting the S&P 500 only fell 1.5% and roughly 70% of companies in the index rose.
One possibility is that investors will start to favor more of the users of artificial intelligence and fewer of the “enablers,” which may have already begun before Monday, Reilly wrote. “In this scenario, the S&P 500 could rally further even as sentiment towards these prior favorites cooled. Indeed, something similar happened during the dotcom bubble — there was a rotation within the I.T. sector (from the largest firms) around 1999/2000 that didn’t undermine the S&P 500 index.”
Strangely, the large share of the market accounted for by the 10 biggest stocks offers some hope. “That might mean that the losses as these gains unwound would be similarly concentrated, affording plenty of scope for the average firm in the S&P 500 to do well if the economic backdrop stayed positive, as we expect,” Reilly noted.
— Scott Schnipper
European markets: Here are the opening calls
European markets are expected to open in mixed territory Wednesday.
The U.K.’s FTSE 100 index is expected to open 1 point higher at 8,538, Germany’s DAX up 46 points at 21,490, France’s CAC down 16 points at 7,897 and Italy’s FTSE MIB up 74 points at 36,406, according to data from IG.
Earnings come from ASML, Volvo, WH Smith and AkzoNobel and Sweden’s Riksbank publishes its latest monetary policy decision later this morning.
— Holly Ellyatt
