European Stocks Reach All-Time Highs Fueled by Strong Earnings

European Market Performance

By Avinash P and Johann M Cherian

Key Drivers of Growth

Feb 12 (Reuters) - European shares hit a record high on Thursday, with luxury and artificial intelligence hardware makers leading gains on positive earnings.

Sector Performances

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was up 0.5% at 624.67 points as of 0930 GMT, with France's CAC 40 index and UK's FTSE 100 also hitting record highs.

M&A Activity Impact

Investors globally were relieved that U.S. data on Wednesday reflected a broadly resilient jobs market, and in Europe, the focus was on a batch of better-than-expected earnings. [MKTS/GLOB]   

Challenges Faced

Since late January, European shares have recovered from several headwinds, including trade uncertainty stemming from a rift with the U.S. over Greenland, alongside a selloff in commodities and tech stocks.

Luxury stocks led the index higher with a 1.5% gain, aided by France's Hermes touching a near one-month high after another quarter of steady revenue growth, lifted by strong sales in the U.S. and Japan. 

Meanwhile, AI-disruption worries that had plagued insurers, asset managers and software companies globally over the past few sessions appeared to take a backseat.

"While fears over AI disruption to the software sector have jolted investor sentiment over the past week, we see it as a validation of AI's monetisation potential," analysts at UBS said in a note.

Traders instead flocked to AI equipment makers in Europe.

Legrand shares jumped 5.8% after the French electrical and digital building infrastructure group said strong data centre demand was helping its expansion, supporting a slight increase in its medium-term profitability targets.

Engineering group Siemens also jumped 5.9% after raising its full-year profit outlook after first-quarter profit exceeded expectations, boosted by surging demand for AI-driven data centre infrastructure.

On the M&A front, money manager Schroders <SDR.L> shot up 28% after U.S. asset manager Nuveen agreed to buy the UK company for 9.9 billion pounds ($13.5 billion), creating a group with combined assets under management of nearly $2.5 trillion.

The broader financial services sector jumped 1.3%.

On the flip side, Swedish biopharmaceutical firm Camurus slid 17%, set for its biggest daily drop in over eight years, after reporting downbeat fourth-quarter revenue.

Dutch payments processor Adyen fell 16.3%, on track for its steepest one-day fall in over two years, after cautious guidance.

French drugmaker Sanofi fell 5% after abruptly ousting its CEO, Paul Hudson, underscoring rising pressure from U.S. vaccine headwinds and a stalled turnaround since he took the reins in 2019.

(Reporting by Avinash P and Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)