European stocks opened lower on Thursday as investors processed another heavy slate of corporate earnings reports, with strong results from some companies failing to lift the broader market sentiment.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 was down 0.3% shortly after the opening bell, with most sectors in negative territory. France’s CAC 40 led the losses among major regional indexes with a 0.7% decline.
AstraZeneca beats, but holds guidance steady
Shares of pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca rose 0.7% after the company reported better-than-expected third-quarter revenue and profit.
Despite a 10% jump in total revenue, the company held its full-year guidance steady, a move CEO Pascal Soriot described as cautious.
Speaking to CNBC, Soriot said the company was still grappling with headwinds in China and Latin America.
“We have a range in our guidance; we could end up in the top end of the range. We decided to be cautious and potentially overdeliver if everything goes well,” he said.
Soriot also commented on relations with the US, telling CNBC,
President Trump wants to rebalance the cost and risk of innovation in our industry … We understood this and we agree with that, so we’ve been pursuing a strategy of investing in the US so we can manufacture all our products in the US.
DHL and Commerzbank: a tale of two German giants
In Germany, the corporate picture was mixed. Shares of logistics firm DHL surged 5.7% after it beat third-quarter earnings estimates.
However, CEO Tobias Meyer told CNBC that the company had seen a “significant decline in US trading volumes.”
In contrast, shares of German lender Commerzbank fell 1.7% after it reported a surprise 7.9% year-on-year drop in third-quarter net profit, which came in at 591 million euros ($680 million).
CEO Bettina Orlopp told CNBC the miss was due to a booked tax effect, and the bank actually raised its full-year guidance for net interest income to 8.2 billion euros.
Bank of England decision and global cues in focus
Beyond earnings, investors are looking ahead to monetary policy decisions from the central banks of Norway and the United Kingdom.
The Bank of England is widely expected to hold its key interest rate steady at 4% as policymakers await the government’s upcoming fiscal plans.
Global cues were also being assessed. Asia-Pacific markets had a positive session overnight, tracking a rally on Wall Street that was fueled by strong earnings from US chipmaker AMD.
US stock futures, however, were slightly lower as investors also weighed a Supreme Court hearing where justices expressed skepticism about the legality of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, raising the possibility of a future rollback.
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