European stocks hits third-straight weekly loss as yields surge

European stocks hits third-straight weekly loss as yields surge

By Sruthi Shankar, Siddarth S and Shristi Achar A

(Reuters) -European shares advanced at the end of a turbulent week tracking Wall Street gains, but hit weekly losses, while a hotter-than-expected U.S. jobs report indicated interest rates might remain elevated for longer pushing bond yields higher.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.8% on Friday with Wall-Street indexes also rising. But the benchmark STOXX index declined for the third consecutive week.

The index hit a six-month low earlier this week as the U.S. and European bond yields surged to multi-year highs on robust U.S. data and on expectations that borrowing costs will remain higher for a longer period.

Data showed U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased by 336,000 jobs last month and was almost double the 170,000 forecast of economists polled by Reuters.

Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields hit 16-year highs, while euro zone bond yields edged higher after U.S. jobs data.

“The Labor report reinforced the conviction by investors that maybe higher for longer is not fully priced in yet, so bond yields have moved higher, weighing on performance,” said Andrea Cicione, head of research at TS Lombard.

Most major European sub-sectors ended higher. Leading gains retailers rose 2.3% boosted by a more than 6% jump in Zalando as investors rushed to buy the stocks at lower prices in hope of resilient third-quarter results amid a weak retail sector.

Tech stocks gained nearly 2% mirroring Wall-Street sentiment.

But the food and beverage index fell 1.8%, with shares of food companies Nestle down more than 2% as investors weighed the potential impact of Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster weight-losing drug Wegovy and how it could reduce spending on food.

Nestle declined to comment on the stock performance. Peers Danone and Unilever were also down, 1.2% and 2.6% lower respectively.

Shell expects integrated gas trading and optimisation in third-quarter to be higher compared to previous quarter. Shares of oil gaint was up about 2%.

While Goldman Sachs sees continued strong earnings performance for European oil companies ahead of third-quarter results.

Shares of Aviva, one of Britain’s largest insurers, surged 5.3% after Britain’s Times newspaper cited talks of a possible takeover by a foreign buyer.

Aviva declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Also, Aviva is among a small handful of insurers exploring bids for the UK consumer operations of rival RSA, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Adyen gained 4.3% after TD Cowen started coverage of the Dutch payment services provider with a “market perform” rating.

Amsterdam-based healthcare technology company Philips tumbled 6.9% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it remains unsatisfied with the status of a product recall.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar, Siddarth S and Shristi Achar A in Bengaluru; Editing by Eileen Soreng and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)