Flurry of positive earnings set to lift Europe

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FLURRY OF POSITIVE EARNINGS SET TO LIFT EUROPE (0643 GMT)

A stream of positive earnings are set to lift European shares at the open, with futures on the STOXX 50 0.5% higher, while FTSE futures are up 0.3% and DAX futures up 0.4%.

Danske Bank on Friday posted a sharp rise in first-quarter results thanks to rising interest rates. The UK'S NatWest also posted better than expected profit for the first three months of 2023.

Mercedes-Benz has lifted its outlook for the annual adjusted return on sales of its vans division to 11%-13% from 9-11% previously.

Further afield, Japan's Sony Group on Friday posted a record annual profit due to a strong performance at its music and microchip units.

Eyes were also on large U.S. tech names on Friday morning, after a bumper week of results. Amazon's Frankfurt-listed shares were down 1.8% after it signaled it expected a slower rate of growth for its cloud business, while Intel shares were up 4.3% after the CFO on Thursday forecast healthy goss margins for the second half.

A few less than stellar results were peppered in amongst the wins.

French fund manager Amundi SA said assets under management fell at the end of the March quarter from a year ago, hit by volatile markets.

Lower oil and gas prices were behind an 11% year-on-year fall in Italian energy group Eni's first-quarter net profit, and Europe's biggest home appliances maker Electrolux , said weaker demand had resulted in lower sales volumes in the first quarter.

(Lucy Raitano)