
European markets head for broadly higher open as earnings deluge continues
Jonathan Brady - Pa Images | Pa Images | Getty Images
Good morning from London, and welcome to CNBC's live blog covering all the action and business news in European financial markets on Thursday.
Futures data from IG suggest a broadly positive open for European indexes, with London's FTSE 100 seen opening 0.1% higher, France's CAC 40 unchanged, Germany's DAX up 0.2%, and Italy's FTSE MIB 0.3% higher.
European markets closed in mixed territory Wednesday, with sectors diverging as second-quarter earnings season ramped up.
There will be more earnings today, with Unilever , Shell , Anheuser-Busch Inbev, London Stock Exchange Group , BMW , Anglo American , SocGen , Renault , AF-KLM , Euronext, Sanofi, Credit Agricole and ArcelorMittal among the heavyweight regional companies that are due to report.
On the data front, French, German and Italian inflation data is due, as are the latest German and EU unemployment figures.
— Holly Ellyatt
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
7 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Some Silicon Valley AI startups are asking employees to adopt China's outlawed ‘996' work model
Some Silicon Valley startups are embracing China's outlawed '996' work culture, expecting employees to work 12-hour days, six days a week, in pursuit of hyper-productivity and global AI dominance. The trend has sparked debate across the U.S. and Europe, with some tech leaders endorsing the pace while others warn it risks mass burnout and startup failure. Silicon Valley's startup hustle culture is starting to look more and more like an outlawed Chinese working schedule. According to a new report from Wired, Bay Area startups are increasingly leaning into models resembling China's 996 working culture, where employees are expected to work from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., six days a week, totaling 72 hours per week. Startups, especially in the AI space, are openly asking new starts to accept the longer working hours. For example, AI start-up Rilla tells prospective employees in current job listings not to even bother applying unless they are excited about 'working ~70 hrs/week in person with some of the most ambitious people in NYC.' The company's head of growth, Will Gao, told Wired there was a growing Gen-Z subculture 'who grew up listening to stories of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, entrepreneurs who dedicated their lives to building life-changing companies.' He said nearly all of Rilla's 80-person workforce works on a 996 schedule. The rise of the controversial work culture appears to have been born out of the current efficiency squeeze in Silicon Valley. Rounds of mass layoffs and the rise of AI have put pressure and turned up the heat on tech employees who managed to keep their jobs. For example, in February, Google co-founder Sergey Brin told employees who work on Gemini that he recommended being in the office at least every weekday and said 60 hours is the 'sweet spot' for productivity. Other tech CEOs, including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, have stressed that productivity among workers is king, even if that means working hours or days of overtime. In November 2022, Musk infamously told remaining X, then Twitter, employees to commit to a new and 'extremely hardcore' culture or leave the company with severance pay. Part of the reasoning for the intense work schedules is a desire to compete with China amid a global AI race. Especially after Chinese startup DeepSeek released an AI model on par with some of the top U.S. offerings, rocking leading AI labs. China has actually been trying to clamp down on the 996 culture at home. In 2021, China's top court, the Supreme People's Court, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security jointly declared China's '996' working culture was illegal. At the time, the move was part of the Chinese Communist Party's broader campaign to reduce inequality in Chinese society and limit the power of the nation's largest tech companies. But the practice has already spilled over to other countries. Earlier this summer, the European tech sector also found itself in a heated debate over the working culture. Partly exacerbated by an ongoing debate about Europe's competitiveness in the technology and AI space, some European VCs warned that more work and longer hours may be needed to effectively compete. Harry Stebbings, founder of the 20VC fund, said on LinkedIn in June that Silicon Valley had 'turned up the intensity,' and European founders needed to take notice. '[Seven] days a week is the required velocity to win right now. There is no room for slip up,' Stebbings said in the post. 'You aren't competing against random company in Germany etc but the best in the world.' Some other founders weighed in, criticizing the rise of the 996 working culture and warning that it could quickly lead to burnout culture. Among them was Ivee Miller, a general partner at Balderton Capital. 'Burnout [is] one of the top 3 reasons early-stage ventures fail. It is literally a bad reason to invest,' Miller said on LinkedIn. This story was originally featured on Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Cocoa Prices Sharply Lower on the Outlook for Adequate Supplies
September ICE NY cocoa (CCU25) on Friday closed down -274 (-3.22%), and September ICE London cocoa #7 (CAU25) closed down -165 (-2.92%). Cocoa prices settled sharply lower Friday as supply concerns eased on speculation that cocoa will be exempt from President Trump's tariffs. US Commerce Secretary Lutnick noted earlier this week that goods not produced in the US could be exempted from tariffs. More News from Barchart Brazil Tariff Risks Underpin Arabica Coffee Prices Arabica Coffee Rises as Tariff Risks Remain Cocoa Prices Settle Sharply Higher on Supply Woes Stop Missing Market Moves: Get the FREE Barchart Brief – your midday dose of stock movers, trending sectors, and actionable trade ideas, delivered right to your inbox. Sign Up Now! Earlier this week, cocoa prices rallied to 1-month highs on concern that the slowdown in the pace of Ivory Coast cocoa exports could tighten global supplies. Monday's government data showed that Ivory Coast farmers shipped 1.75 MMT of cocoa to ports this marketing year from October 1 to July 27, up +6.1% from last year but down from the much larger +35% increase seen in December. Concerns about dry weather in West Africa are also bullish for cocoa prices. According to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, rainfall in the Ivory Coast and Ghana this season remains below the 30-year average, and combined with high temperatures, risks hurting cocoa pod development for the main crop harvest that starts in October. Concerns over tepid chocolate demand are bearish for cocoa prices. Last Tuesday, chocolate maker Lindt & Spruengli AG lowered its margin guidance for the year due to a larger-than-expected decline in first-half chocolate sales. Also, chocolate maker Barry Callebaut AG reduced its sales volume guidance earlier this month for a second time in three months, citing persistently high cocoa prices. The company projects a decline in full-year sales volume and reported a -9.5% drop in its sales volume for the March-May period, the largest quarterly decline in a decade. Cocoa prices sold off last month, with NY cocoa sinking to an 8.5-month nearest-futures low and London cocoa slumping to a 17-month nearest-futures low. Weakness in global cocoa demand has hammered prices. The European Cocoa Association reported on July 17 that Q2 European cocoa grindings fell by -7.2% y/y to 331,762 MT, a bigger decline than expectations of -5% y/y. Also, the Cocoa Association of Asia reported that Q2 Asian cocoa grindings fell -16.3% y/y to 176,644 MT, the smallest amount for a Q2 in 8 years. North American Q2 cocoa grindings fell -2.8% y/y to 101,865 MT, which was a smaller decline than the declines seen in Asia and Europe. In a bearish development, ICE-monitored cocoa inventories held in US ports reached a 10.5-month high of 2,368,141 bags last Tuesday. Higher cocoa production by Ghana is bearish for cocoa prices. On July 1, the Ghana Cocoa Board projected the 2025/26 Ghana cocoa crop would increase by +8.3% y/y to 650,000 from 600,000 MT in 2024/25. Ghana is the world's second-largest cocoa producer. Cocoa prices have support from quality concerns regarding the Ivory Coast's mid-crop cocoa, which is currently being harvested through September. Cocoa processors are complaining about the quality of the crop and have rejected truckloads of Ivory Coast cocoa beans. Processors reported that about 5% to 6% of the mid-crop cocoa in each truckload is of poor quality, compared with 1% during the main crop. According to Rabobank, the poor quality of the Ivory Coast's mid-crop is partly attributed to late-arriving rain in the region, which limited crop growth. The mid-crop is the smaller of the two annual cocoa harvests, which typically starts in April. The average estimate for this year's Ivory Coast mid-crop is 400,000 MT, down -9% from last year's 440,000 MT. On May 30, the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) revised its 2023/24 global cocoa deficit to -494,000 MT from a February estimate of -441,000 MT, the largest deficit in over 60 years. ICCO said 2023/24 cocoa production fell by 13.1% y/y to 4.380 MMT. ICCO stated that the 2023/24 global cocoa stocks-to-grindings ratio declined to a 46-year low of 27.0%. Looking ahead to 2024/25, ICCO on February 28 forecasted a global cocoa surplus of 142,000 MT for 2024/25, the first surplus in four years. ICCO also projected that 2024/25 global cocoa production will rise +7.8% y/y to 4.84 MMT. On the date of publication, Rich Asplund did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump says he will fire lead official on economic data as stocks shudder
US President Donald Trump said he would fire the head of the agency charged with publishing some of America's most closely watched economic data, after a weaker-than-expected jobs report stoked further alarm about his tariff policies. His decision to move forward with plans to sharply raise tariffs on goods from countries around the world had already sent financial markets in the US shuddering. In the US, the three major indexes dropped, with the S&P falling 1.9% by mid-afternoon. That followed earlier sell-offs in Europe and Asia, as investors dumped shares of firms such as South Korean steel manufacturers and German truck-maker Daimler. Trump's plans leave most goods coming into the US facing new taxes of 10% to 50%, depending on their origin, and will lift tariff rates in the US to the highest levels in nearly a century. Trump says the measures will rebalance global trade and boost US manufacturing. But analysts say they will raise prices for businesses and consumers in the US and weigh on the US and global economies, as sales, hiring and investment slow. This week has revived fears about economic damage, as companies update investors on their costs and new data points to slowdown in the US. Employers in the US added just 73,000 jobs in July, according the monthly Labor Department report published on Friday. It also dramatically revised estimates of job growth in May and June, with far fewer gains than previously thought. "The economic data since the Liberation Day announcements did not reflect that sharp deterioration in economic activity, or at least not in obvious ways. This was the week that changed," analysts at Wells Fargo wrote on Friday. The revisions appeared to spur Trump to fire the commissioner of labor statistics, Erika McEntarfer, in a post on social media. "We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY," he wrote on social media, referring to the large revisions to the May and June jobs numbers. Trump also lashed out at Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, whom he has angrily criticised in recent months. Shares in the US opened lower in the morning, with losses accelerating over the course of the afternoon. France's CAC 40 closed down 2.9%, while German's DAX fell 2.6%. In the UK, the FTSE fell 0.7%. Earlier the leading index in South Korea fell 3.8%, the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong dropped 1% and Japan's Nikkei fell 0.6%. When Trump first put forward his plans in April, shares in the US tumbled more than 10% in a week, the concerns spreading to the dollar and bond markets. The stock market recovered after he suspended some of the most drastic measures, leaving in place a less punishing, more expected 10% levy. In recent weeks, indexes in the US have been trading around all-time highs. "The reality is Trump got emboldened by the fact that markets came right back," Michael Gayed, portfolio manager for The Free Markets ETF told the BBC's Opening Bell. "Now he's going to try his luck again." The latest measures are less extreme than what Trump first put forward in April, when goods from key players in southeast Asia, such as Vietnam, were facing tariff rates of more than 40% and a tit-for-tat exchange with China drove US tariffs on its exports surge to at least 145%. But the tariffs still make for a radical change for the US, for decades a champion of free trade. The plans include a minimum 10% tax on most goods entering the US, with major trade partners, including the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam face tariffs in the range of 15% to 20%. Goods from China are set to facing new 30% levies, while exports from some other countries, including Switzerland and Laos face even higher duties. The changes, which are set to go into effect on 7 August, will lift the average tariff rate to roughly 18%, up from less than 2.5% as recently as January. Investors had been taking the impact of tariffs in stride, sending shares in the US and elsewhere to new highs in recent weeks. Mr Gayed said markets had become less sensitive to Trump's rapidly changing trade policies, but he saw risks ahead. "The more he just whips around policy, the more the markets will not care, but as the old saying goes, nothing matters 'til it matters and then it's the only thing that matters," he said.