Europe’s STOXX 600 ends at record high, lifted by healthcare, chemical stocks
STOXX 600 climbs 0.2%
Germany’s DAX falls after 11 sessions of gains
Luxury sector under spotlight after Saks bankruptcy
Healthcare and chemical stocks lead STOXX 600 gains
Jan 14 (Reuters) – European shares closed at a record high on Wednesday, buoyed by gains in chemicals and healthcare stocks, while investors also monitored the repercussions of simmering geopolitical tensions globally.
EMS Chemie (EMSN.S), opens new tab surged 8% and was among top performers on the STOXX index after UBS upgraded the Swiss chemical group to “buy” from “hold”. Chemical companies were also among top gainers on the U.S. benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab.
On the earnings front, Finnish drugmaker Orion (ORNBV.HE), opens new tab climbed 12% to its highest since October, following a better-than-expected revenue forecast for 2026.
Michael Field, European equity market strategist at Morningstar, said the market was digesting some of the news around the trade deal between the EU and the Mercosur trade bloc in Latin America, which capped a quarter-century of talks.
It “allows those sectors – pharma, some industrials and indeed chemicals – to export more over time without the same trade barriers or tariffs,” Field said.
Among regional markets, Germany’s DAX index (.GDAXI), opens new tab witnessed declines after logging its longest daily winning streak in more than a decade on Tuesday. The DAX closed 0.5% lower, weighed by technology stocks such as SAP (SAPG.DE), opens new tab and Infineon (IFXGn.DE), opens new tab.
Meanwhile, traders were digesting the bankruptcy of high-end department store conglomerate Saks Global, to which Gucci-owner Kering (PRTP.PA), opens new tab and the world’s biggest luxury conglomerate LVMH (LVMH.PA), opens new tab were listed as unsecured creditors.
“The situation raises concerns about consumer demand, especially at the higher end of the market, and about extreme competition in the space, including from e-commerce,” said Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com.
Investors were also eyeing geopolitical developments in Venezuela and Iran, with most of the impact seen in commodity prices.
Utility companies RWE (RWEG.DE), opens new tab and SSE (SSE.L), opens new tab added 2.3% and 2% respectively. They were among the project developers to win guaranteed electricity price contracts in Britain’s latest offshore wind power auction, which secured a record capacity.
British education company Pearson (PSON.L), opens new tab dropped 9.5% after its biggest division lost a contract with New Jersey.
Reporting by Niket Nishant, Avinash P and Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; editing by Janane Venkatraman, Harikrishnan Nair and Mark Heinrich
Niket Nishant reports on breaking news and the quarterly earnings of Wall Street’s largest banks, card companies, financial technology upstarts and asset managers. He also covers the biggest IPOs on U.S. exchanges, and late-stage venture capital funding alongside news and regulatory developments in the cryptocurrency industry. His writing appears on the finance, business, markets and future of money sections of the website. He did his post-graduation from the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media (IIJNM) in Bengaluru.
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. View more earnings on SPY U.S. stock futures are mixed early Thursday as Wall Street navigates a tech-led pullback, critical PCE inflation data, and retreating oil prices amid renewed diplomatic hopes in the Middle East. Thursday follows the
The Milwaukee Brewers are one win from their first World Series title, more than five decades after starting out as the bankrupt Seattle Pilots. The stock market has its own reasons to cheer them on against the Tampa Bay Rays. The stock market has risen in about 71% of the years after a National League
Microsoft and Alphabet reported last quarter capital expenditures that fell short of analyst targets. “Some third-party capacity deliveries we expected in Q1 were delayed,” Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said. Bank of America disclosed that it held a 4.1% stake in IREN. Neocloud stocks fell in overnight trading late Wednesday after Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) reported fiscal
Seemingly, everyone is digging into Anthropic’s (ANTH.PVT) IPO prospectus this week, even other C-suite execs like Robinhood (HOOD) CFO Shiv Verma. “I have gone through it. The growth rates are pretty incredible, … up 1,300% year over year, I can’t recall seeing another company doing that well,” Verma said on Yahoo Finance about what caught
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic filed an S-1 prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, indicating it will go public in the near future. The five-year-old company behind AI assistant Claude is expected to be one of the biggest initial public offerings in history. It could take the top spot if it exceeds SpaceX’s
SpaceX (SPCX -2.25%) and Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently posted on X that over the past few weeks, debt markets have “almost entirely shut off access to money for any company that doesn’t have substantial revenue independent of AI data centers”. Musk believes that tightening could cause more than 200 neocloud companies — which mainly
For months, investors have asked how Oracle (ORCL) would pay for its AI build-out. On Wednesday the company put numbers on it, and the stock had its best day since May. Shares closed up about 11% at about $144 Wednesday, adding more than $40 billion in market value, as the company laid out new financial
Google (GOOG, GOOGL) reported its third quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday, missing revenue projections on lower-than-anticipated advertising sales, despite Google Cloud growth of 103%. Google saw earnings per share (EPS) of $2.12 on revenue of 127.58 billion. Analysts were looking for EPS of $3.01 on revenue of $127.93 billion. Revenue excluding traffic acquisition
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) faces a familiar earnings test tonight: can its AI push deliver enough growth to justify the spending? Shares traded at $530.37, down 0.18%, at 9:55 a.m. ET on October 28. The company’s earnings preview puts Azure and investment costs in focus, but investors also have new reporting
Applied Digital (NASDAQ: APLD) insiders have been buying the dip as the artificial intelligence (AI) stock continues to slide. The company’s CEO and president bought a combined $6.7 million worth of shares on Oct. 16. Despite the insider buying, Applied Digital is down by more than 30% over the past month. No doubt, sentiment around
Quick Read NRG Energy (NRG) turned a $1,000 investment made 10 years ago into $11,467, representing a 1,047% return, and that is despite a 39% drop in 2026. NRG missed EPS estimates in both Q1 and Q2 2026, reporting $1.49 versus expectations above $1.73, with Texas power prices averaging $33/MWh versus a $52 planning assumption.
Image from Pixabay For questions about this article or underlying research, email help@trefis.com. Investors pay 22.3 times earnings for Home Depot (HD) stock. That valuation is higher than for its closest rival, Lowe’s, or for Amazon, but lower than for Walmart or Costco. Among these five large retailers, Home Depot retains the highest share of
The S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.20%) index has more than doubled from its 2022 bear market low point, driven by blistering returns from the technology sector which is home to many of the companies leading the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. The index’s Shiller cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings (CAPE) ratio recently hit 41, a stone’s throw away from
Quick Read Jim Reid found October 27 historically marks the S&P 500’s autumn low, and SPY gained 0.57% as small caps surged over 1%. RSP hedges megacap concentration risk. Microsoft alone holds nearly 5% of SPY, meaning one bad earnings report can erase seasonal gains. The S&P 500 has averaged +17% returns in the year
The Morning Bull – US Market Morning Update Wednesday, Oct, 28 2026 US stocks are set for a slightly positive open, with sentiment leaning cautiously upbeat. The single driver this morning is stronger US demand data, which keeps the soft landing debate very much alive. September durable goods orders rose 1.8%, while core orders excluding
Quick Read QCOM trades at a forward P/E of 18 while two hyperscaler custom silicon deals are set to generate revenue as early as the December quarter. Broadcom’s AI semiconductor revenue hit $17 billion, up 221%, representing the exact market QCOM is now entering, yet it trades at a steep discount to both NVDA and
The stock market’s favorite season starts Monday. For decades, November through April has beaten the rest of the year by a mile. That’s the Halloween indicator, also called the “best six months” or “sell in May.” Buy stocks at the end of October, hold them through April, then step aside for the summer. Yale Hirsch
For a decade, Big Tech’s cash machines paid for every moonshot. Now Meta (META) is passing the hat, and the plan behind it began with a standoff between Mark Zuckerberg and his board. Meta is selling nearly $100 billion in stock to fund its AI build-out. Even Nvidia (NVDA) is chipping in $3 billion. The
