By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - European stock markets traded higher Thursday, continuing recent gains with investors buoyed by some solid corporate earnings.
At 3:55 AM ET (0855 GMT), the DAX in Germany traded 0.5% higher, the CAC 40 in France rose 0.5%, U.K.'s FTSE index climbed 0.6%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB rose 0.2%.
On the corporate front, Bayer (OTC:BAYRY) stock jumped 5% after the German company struck a $2 billion deal to resolve future legal claims that its widely used weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.
Nokia (NYSE:NOK) stock rose 1.1% after the Finnish telecommunications player reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue following a strategy revamp from new CEO Pekka Lundmark.
Shell (LON:RDSa) stock rose 1% after the oil giant said it expected to raise its dividend again in a sign of confidence, despite its profit dropping in 2020 to the lowest in at least two decades as the coronavirus pandemic hit energy demand.
Deutsche Bank (DE:DBKGn) swung to a small annual profit in 2020, its first since 2014, on the back of strong gains at its investment banking division. However, its stock fell 1.8% as more was expected of the German lender.
Expectations of additional U.S. stimulus have boosted global stock markets of late, particularly after the Democrats in Congress pushed ahead with a maneuver to ensure President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid relief package gets through largely undiluted, even without Republican support.
In Italy, former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi accepted a request from Italy’s head of state to try to form a government of national unity that will combat the pandemic and a deep recession.
On the economic data front, retail sales for the euro zone are expected to show a rebound in December after November’s sharp drop.
However, the focus will be on the Bank of England's latest policy-setting meeting. The central bank is expected to keep rates and its pace of bond purchases on hold, and may move further away from the idea of negative rates as the U.K. benefits of a rapid vaccination campaign.
Oil prices pushed higher Thursday, boosted by the commitment of a group of top producers to continue to curb output as well as U.S. crude stockpiles falling to the smallest level in more than 10 months.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, a grouping known as OPEC+, extended its current oil output policy at a meeting on Wednesday, a move designed to balance a market having to cope with a hefty cut to demand as the pandemic weighs on global mobility.
U.S. crude futures traded 0.6% higher at $56.07 a barrel, after reaching their highest settlement level in a year on Wednesday. The international benchmark Brent contract rose 0.2% to $58.81, having earlier climbed to its highest in nearly a year.
Elsewhere, gold futures fell 0.7% to $1,821.90/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.4% lower at 1.1992.