(Alliance News) - European equities grew in confidence on Thursday, helped by a dovish European Central Bank, while in New York, headlines were dominated by banking earnings and a hostile attempt by Tesla boss Elon Musk to acquire all of microblogging platform Twitter.
The FTSE 100 index ended up 35.58 points, or 0.5%, at 7,616.38 on Thursday. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index closed up 137.16 points at 21,121.61, while the AIM All-Share index ended up 3.35 points, or 0.3%, at 1,060.16.
Despite a decent trading day on Thursday, equities still ended the abbreviated week mixed.
The FTSE 100 is down marginally from where it ended last Friday. The FTSE 250 has lost 0.3% though the AIM All-Share rose 0.4%.
Financial markets in London, Frankfurt, Paris and New York are all closed on Friday to mark Good Friday. They do not re-open until Tuesday, following Easter Monday.
The Cboe UK 100 index rose 0.5% at 757.95. The Cboe 250 ended up 0.6% at 18,562.21, and the Cboe Small Companies added 0.1% at 15,430.06.
In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris closed up 0.7%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt added 0.6%.
The European Central Bank stood pat on policy on Thursday even as it acknowledged strengthening inflation pressures, which are only set to intensify further in the coming months.
The Frankfurt-based central bank kept the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.50%, respectively.
The central bank made no tweaks to monetary policy at its April meeting. The Governing Council said incoming data since its last meeting has reinforced its expectation that net asset purchases under its asset purchase programme should be concluded in the third quarter.
Monthly net purchases under the APP will be EUR40 billion in April, EUR30 billion in May and EUR20 billion in June.
"The ECB has decided not to follow fashion and has kept its hawks firmly under control. While the US and UK go for more rate rises the ECB argues that no rush is necessary, with rate rises coming 'some time' after asset purchases end. This news has given new life to European markets, which have continued to make gains today after rebounding yesterday, while the euro is, unsurprisingly, taking it very badly, dropping to its lowest level in almost two years," IG analyst Chris Beauchamp commented.
The euro was priced at USD1.0797 at the European equities close on Thursday, down from USD1.0863 late Wednesday.
The single currency drifted as low as USD1.0758 on Thursday, its worst level since March 2020.
The pound was quoted at USD1.3060 at the London equities close on Thursday, unchanged from Wednesday. Against the yen, the dollar was trading at JPY125.91, up from JPY125.69.
Stocks in New York were mixed at the time of the London equities close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.4%, though the S&P 500 was down 0.3% and the Nasdaq Composite was 1.0% lower.
Twitter shares were up 1.1% at the time of the European equities close.
Tesla Chief Executive Musk has offered to buyout Twitter in a bid worth around USD43 billion, a regulatory filing showed on Thursday.
Billionaire Musk, who it was revealed last week has taken a 9.2% stake in the microblogging platform, offered to buy the remaining shares in Twitter he does not already own for USD54.20 each.
AJ Bell analyst Danni Hewson commented: "Why build your own when you can buy one somebody else made earlier? Elon Musk has made no secret of the fact he fancied having a social media platform dedicated to 'free speech' as part of his global empire.
"He toyed with starting something bespoke, considered playing in someone else's sandpit, but ultimately decided it the best move was to launch a full-on takeover for Twitter. His bid is serious, it offers no chance of negotiation and it's probably going to be successful. If the Twitter board were to consider rejecting the offer, shares in the company would undoubtedly tank and shareholders, many of whom follow Mr Musk on the contested platform, would be pretty fed up."
Goldman Sachs was 0.3% higher, Citigroup rose 2.3% and Morgan Stanley climbed 1.6%.
The three banks all reported profit falls for the first quarter of 2022, but topped market estimates.
Morgan Stanley said net income fell 11% annually to USD3.67 billion from USD4.12 billion. Citigroup said net income dropped more than 45% to USD4.31 billion from USD7.94 billion. Goldman Sachs reported net earnings of USD3.94 billion, down 42% from USD6.84 billion.
Wells Fargo & Co was down 3.5%, meanwhile, as revenue fell short of market forecasts.
In the London-listed banking space, Standard Chartered advanced 1.2%.
It laid out plans to "simplify" its operations in Africa & the Middle East in an attempt to "deliver efficiencies" and "reduce complexity".
The FTSE 100-listed lender said it will redirect resources within its Africa & Middle East business to "those areas where it can have the greatest scale and growth potential, in order to better support its clients."
The seven markets StanChart expects to make be a full exit from are Angola, Cameroon, Gambia, Jordan, Lebanon, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe.
In Tanzania and Ivory Coast, the bank will exit its Consumer, Private & Business Banking businesses and the focus will turn solely to its Corporate, Commercial & Institutional Banking business.
Travel stocks were higher. Intercontinental Hotels Group added 4.1%, SSP Group rose 6.6% and Wizz Air climbed 7.8%.
Budget carrier Wizz expects a widened annual loss, but is preparing for strong demand over the upcoming summer season.
In the final three months of Wizz's financial year, ended March 31, it expects to report an operating loss between EUR190 million and EUR210 million - which would beat previous expectations, thanks to a "stronger trading environment".
For the full-year, however, its net loss is guided between EUR632 million and EUR652 million, which would be widened from the EUR576.0 million posted for the 2021 financial year - which was its first annual loss since 2012.
To begin financial 2023, Wizz said it is ramping up operations for a "busy" summer programme with the firm expecting to operate available seat kilometres 30% ahead of the April to June 2019 quarter and more than 40% ahead of the July to September 2019 quarter.
Petropavlovsk plunged 17% after saying it is exploring its options as it struggles to make interest payments on its loans due to Russian sanctions.
The miner, which operates in Russia, has a USD200 million term committed term loan and USD86.7 million in revolving credit facilities with Moscow-based Gazprombank. The company remains unable to make interest payments due to sanctions imposed on Gazprombank.
Petropavlovsk said it is "mindful" of an interest payment of USD12.4 million due on May 14, as part of USD500 million notes maturing in November 2022. Of this amount, USD304 million currently remains outstanding.
The company said it will be "very challenging" to refinance the notes, considering that it has limited cash reserves outside Russia. Further, there are legal restrictions in Russia which limit its ability to transfer cash out of the country.
Petropavlovsk said it appointed London-based business consulting firm AlixPartners to assist with exploring its options. It noted that one option would be to sell its entire interests in its operating subsidiaries as soon "as practically possible."
Gold stood at USD1,964.54 an ounce, late Thursday, down from USD1,977.64 late Wednesday.
Brent was quoted at USD107.52 a barrel, up versus USD106.79.
Next week's economic calendar gets off to a quiet start on Tuesday before producer price figures from Germany on Wednesday, eurozone inflation data on Thursday before UK retail sales and a host of PMIs on Friday.
Following the long weekend, Tuesday's UK corporate calendar has annual results from fund manager JTC, a trading statement from software company Kainos and a first-quarter output report from miner Rio Tinto.
By Eric Cunha; ericcunha@alliancenews.com
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