EUROPEAN shares retreated from record highs on Thursday (Feb 27), with automakers leading declines as investors evaluated the impact of US President Donald Trump’s potential tariffs on the European Union.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index closed down 0.5 per cent, after touching a record high on Wednesday.
An index of European autos and component makers fell more than 3.7 per cent. Stellantis dropped 5.2 per cent, BMW lost 3.8 per cent and Porsche was down 3.3 per cent.
Ferrari was the biggest drag, down 7.9 per cent, after Exor sold a roughly 4 per cent stake in the luxury automaker for 3 billion euros (S$3.14 billion).
The European Commission said that it would react “firmly and immediately against unjustified barriers to free and fair trade”, in response to Trump’s tariffs.
“The first question is how real the threat is, because so far we have seen that he will use it as a bargaining tool,” said Yvan Mamalet, senior economist strategist at SG Kleinwort Hambros.
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“The EU imports a lot of services from the US, in particular the tech giants, so it can show retaliation and that may help to avoid tariffs. Exports to the US are still a relatively small share of euro area GDP, so it’s kind of a moderate impact.”
Technology shares fell 2.2 per cent, dragged by heavyweights SAP and ASML, after US artificial intelligence bellwether Nvidia’s quarterly results failed to impress investors.
Most Stoxx 600 sectors closed lower but energy shares were a bright spot, buoyed by rising oil prices.
Meanwhile, the European Central Bank’s (ECB) system that handles US$1.9 trillion a day in transactions across the region was suffering an outage which could delay settlement of payments.
A Reuters poll showed that the ECB was set to trim its deposit rate again to 2.5 per cent next week.
Most regional stock bourses were also lower on the day. Britain’s FTSE 100 and Ireland’s ISEQ were outliers, with a 0.3 per cent and 0.4 per cent gain respectively.
The FTSE 100 was boosted by a near 16 per cent rise in Rolls-Royce, that hit a record high, after the British engine-maker lifted its mid-term targets and beat 2024 profit growth expectations.
British online supermarket and technology company Ocado dropped 18 per cent to the bottom of the Stoxx 600 on market concerns the global roll-out of its robotic sites was too slow.
French IT consulting company Sopra Steria and kitchen and joinery supplier Howden Joinery’s fell 11 per cent and 6.1 per cent respectively after their annual results.
British ad group WPP tumbled 16.2 per cent to a more than four-year low after the company reported a bigger-than-expected 1 per cent fall in full-year organic revenue. REUTERS
