European shares gain on strong earnings
The pan-European STOXX 600 index closed 1% higher. Most major regional bourses also gained, with Germany benchmark DAX gaining 1.5%, while France's CAC 40 added 1.3%.
Swiss engineering group ABB jumped almost 10% after posting its highest quarterly order intake yet, driven by demand for products used in data centres to support artificial intelligence.
France's Legrand gained close to 9% after the electrical infrastructure provider hiked its annual sales target driven by strong growth in North American data centre segment. Rival Schneider Electric also jumped 7.7%.
European chipmakers recouped some losses from the previous session with TSMC, the world's main producer of advanced AI chips, posting record profit in the second quarter boosting sentiment. ASML rose 3.9%, following an 11% drop on Wednesday.
Ocado climbed 18.5% after the online supermarket reported a 77% rise in first-half underlying earnings and said its priority is to generate cash in its next financial year.
The latest forecasts had shown that the outlook for European corporate health has deteriorated, with expectations of a drop of 0.7% year-on-year in second-quarter earnings, according to LSEG I/B/E/S data.
Investors continued to await clarity on US-EU trade talks with the bloc preparing retaliatory measures in case negotiations with Washington failed.
'Markets are still pretty optimistic that this may be the case and that things will progress in the next two weeks,' said Daniela Hathorn, senior market analyst at Capital.com.
'We've seen in the past, and even in Trump's first term, the amount of times that he actually threatened action and what he delivered was very limited.'
European equities fell sharply on Wednesday after Bloomberg reported that Trump is likely to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, but Trump later said he is not planning to do so.
Meanwhile, Britain and Germany signed a wide-ranging friendship treaty that deepened ties in areas including defence and transport as UK attempts to reset ties with the EU.
Among other moving stocks, Tomra Systems dropped 13.3%, the worst day since October 2023, after the Norwegian group posted a second-quarter net sales miss.
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