European shares closed near a three-week high on Monday, with luxury and defence stocks boosting the main index in advance of key meetings at the US Federal Reserve and other central banks.
Dublin
The Irish index of shares ended the day at 11,456, adding 0.2 per cent by the close of the session.
Banking shares moved higher, with AIB adding almost 1 per cent to end the day at €7.60, while Bank of Ireland was up 0.74 per cent to €13.55. Permanent TSB, meanwhile, was 1.75 per cent higher.
That was offset by a decline in Kerry Group, which fell 1.4 per cent, while fellow food group Glanbia was flat, ending the day at €13.93.
RM Block
Construction stocks were lower, with insulation specialist Kingspan was 0.7 per cent lower, while home builders Cairn and Glenveagh also lost ground.
Ryanair shares edged higher to €24.03, adding almost 0.9 per cent.
London
London’s FTSE 100 index slipped on Monday, dragged down by heavyweight AstraZeneca and a stronger pound, as investors braced for a busy week of central bank meetings, including the Bank of England.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 closed down 0.1 per cent, while the midcap FTSE 250 index edged up 0.1 per cent
AstraZeneca fell 3.2 per cent after Handelsbanken cut its rating and Reuters reported the drugmaker had paused a planned £200 million (€231.1 million) investment in its Cambridge research site.
Among other stocks, AO World jumped 14 per cent after the British electronics retailer laid out plans for its first-ever share buyback and raised the lower end of its annual adjusted pretax profit forecast.
Sainsbury hit a more than four-year high, up 3.5 per cent. Martin Sorrell’s advertising group S4 Capital slumped 21 per cent to a record low after cutting its annual revenue forecast for the second time this year.
Europe
The pan-European STOXX 600 ended 0.42 per cent higher at 557.16 points, led by a 1.9 per cent rise in the region-wide luxury index
Marquee fashion names LVMH, L’Oreal jumped 2.7 per cent and 1.9 per cent respectively, while Kering rose 5.8 per cent. Brunello Cucinelli gained 5.6 per cent after J.P. Morgan initiated coverage with an “overweight” rating.
European chip stocks also boosted the main index, with BESI, ASML and ASMI rising between 5.6 per cent and 6 per cent.
The moves contrasted with their Wall Street peers, which weakened after China announced an anti-discrimination and anti-dumping investigation into U.S. chip trade policy on Saturday.
A report of bids for Rubis from CVC Capital Partners and Trafigura lifted the fuel retailer’s shares 7 per cent to the top of the STOXX 600 index
New York
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq hit intraday record highs on Monday, beginning the week with the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting on a strong note, while Tesla shares gained following CEO Elon Musk’s stock purchase.
The electric vehicle maker jumped 6 per cent to its highest level since late January after regulatory filings revealed Musk had acquired nearly $1 billion worth of Tesla’s stock on Friday.
Tesla’s gains boosted the S&P 500 consumer discretionary sector 1.7 per cent to its highest level in nearly nine months.
The communication services sector was 1.8 per cent higher on a boost by Google-parent Alphabet, which hit $3 trillion (€2.5 trillion) in market capitalisation for the first time.
Nvidia pared its losses from earlier in the session. It had slipped after China’s market regulator said it will continue an investigation into the AI chip leader after preliminary findings showed it had violated the country’s anti-monopoly law.
In early afternoon trading the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 5.86 points, or 0.01 per cent, to 45,828.28, the S&P 500 gained 29.50 points, or 0.45 per cent, to 6,613.79 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 184.13 points, or 0.83 per cent, to 22,325.23.
Declines in Sherwin-Williams and McDonald’s limited gains on the Dow. – Additional reporting; Reuters
