In Europe, the stock markets opened on Thursday with mixed results. The Euro Stoxx 600 general index was down 0.3 percent at the time of review, while London’s FTSE 100 index was up 0.5 percent and Germany’s DAX index was down 0.4 percent. Stockholm’s OMXS30 index also saw a decline of 0.3 percent.
Several large European companies, including Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Nestle, and Airbus, were preparing to release their earnings reports on Thursday. Deutsche Bank reported a profit increase of 1.275 billion euros in the first quarter, a 10 percent rise compared to the previous year, exceeding analysts’ expectations of 1.23 billion euros. The company’s net sales also rose by 1 percent year-on-year to 7.8 billion euros, close to the forecast of 7.73 billion euros.
Barclays also surpassed analysts’ predictions with a first-quarter profit fall of £1.55 billion pounds, down from £1.78 billion pounds a year ago and lower than the expected operating profit of £1.29 billion pounds by analysts. Nestle reported a revenue decline of 5.9 percent from last year to CHF22.1 billion Swiss francs but fell short of analysts’ forecast by CHF158 million or about 6 percent less than expected revenue growth for this period as per some sources .
On another front , British mining giant Anglo American announced that its Australian competitor BHP had made an offer to buy it for £31