European stocks end the week higher as US mixed

European stocks rose on Friday to end the week higher, while shares of Wall Street’s most valuable companies were mixed on Friday before a rebalance of the Nasdaq 100 index to address the benchmark’s “overconcentration.”

Dublin

The Dublin index ended the week slightly higher, gaining 29 points to close the session at 8929, boosted by gains in banking and building stocks.

Bank of Ireland was more than 1 per cent higher, closing the day at €9.46, while AIB added 0.35 per cent on Friday.

Ryanair saw its shares climb almost 1 per cent, a day after the company said it would base 30 aircraft in Ukraine after the conflict there ends. Shares ended the week at €16.44.

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Paddy Power owner Flutter Entertainment shed 0.37 per cent to close the week at €177.15, while Dalata Hotel Group was down more than 1.1 per cent by the end of the day.

London

British stocks were mixed at the close on Friday but the main benchmarks clocked their best weekly performance in more than seven months as easing inflation offset concerns about aggressive interest rate hikes by the Bank of England.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 closed 0.2 per cent higher, boosted by oil and gas giants. The index registered weekly gains of 3.1 per cent.

The domestically focused FTSE 250 index slipped 0.6 per cent on Friday, but posted a weekly rise of 3.4 per cent.

Rate-sensitive home builders rose 0.2 per cent and marked their best week in more than three years.

Polymetal International fell 7.2 per cent as the gold and silver producer said its stock will stop trading on the London Stock Exchange after August 1st.

Europe

German stocks lagged as SAP’s bleak revenue forecast weighed on the tech sector, which also recorded its biggest weekly drop this year.

SAP fell 4.2 per cent after the business software maker trimmed its full-year outlook for key cloud sales, dragging Germany’s DAX index down 0.2 per cent.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index edged 0.3 per cent higher, rising for the fourth session.

Europe’s technology sector, which fell 4.8 per cent to be top decliner among big sectors this week, slipped 0.4 per cent on the day.

The mining sector declined 1.5 per cent, hurt by some disappointing results. Swedish steelmaker SSAB slumped 13.8 per cent to the bottom of the STOXX 600 after its operating profit halved in the second quarter, while Norsk Hydro fell 2.2 per cent after the Norwegian aluminium producer raised its capital expenditure guidance.

Thales slipped 4.8 per cent despite a guidance raise by the defence electronics firm, with Jefferies pointing to revised forex assumptions weighing on the outlook.

Ubisoft jumped 5.2 per cent, after the French video game producer’s first-quarter net bookings came above guidance.

SBB tumbled 12.9 per cent after the Swedish property group and Brookfield ended talks on the sale of SBB’s remaining 51 per cent stake in its education subsidiary EduCo.

New York

Wall Street rose in choppy trading on Friday, with a rally in healthcare stocks setting the blue-chip Dow index on course for its tenth straight day of gains.

After see-sawing for a while, the Dow firmed and was on track to notch its longest winning streak in almost six years.

The S&P 500 index for healthcare stocks rose 1.1 per cent on Friday, while the NYSE FANG+TM index that houses megacap growth names slipped after falling 4.6 per cent in the previous session as earnings from Tesla and Netflix failed to dazzle.

The Nasdaq 100 was near flat on Friday. Nvidia and Tesla dipped 1.4 per cent and 0.4 per cent, respectively, while Alphabet added nearly 1 per cent and Apple and Amazon were near unchanged.

Before trading begins on Monday, exchange operator Nasdaq will trim the weight of a handful of companies that make up close to half of the Nasdaq 100.

Broadcom, which will probably see its weight increase in the Nasdaq 100 following the rebalance, rose 1.6 per cent. The chipmaker makes up 2.4 per cent of the index, according to Refinitiv data. – Additional reporting: Reuters