Global stocks advanced as crude oil prices fell after US president Donald Trump signalled that talks with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz were in their \u201cfinal stages\u201d.<\/p>\n
Chip and technology stocks lifted European indices as traders await Nvidia\u2019s quarterly earnings after the market closes, which investors view as a crucial test of AI demand.<\/p>\n
DUBLIN<\/p>\n
The Iseq Overall Index advanced by 1.6 per cent, with gains led by Origin Enterprises and Ryanair. <\/p>\n
Agri-services group Origin jumped by 6 per cent to \u20ac4.71 per share.<\/p>\n
Ryanair, meanwhile, reversed Tuesday\u2019s decline, adding 5.3 per cent to close at \u20ac23.50 amid renewed hopes for a deal between Iran and the US to reopen the Straits of Hormuz, the closure of which has seen jet fuel prices skyrocket.<\/p>\n
On the day that Bank of Ireland and AIB announced their inclusion in a joint venture of 37 EU banks developing a euro-backed stablecoin, Irish bank shares were mixed. <\/p>\n
AIB dipped 0.5 per cent to \u20ac9.78 per share, while Bank of Ireland inched 1.4 per cent higher to \u20ac17.05. <\/p>\n
Among the other big movers were Uniphar, which added 2.3 per cent, and FBD Holdings, which slid by 1.8 per cent.<\/p>\n
EUROPE<\/p>\n
Tech and banking stocks lifted European share indices on Wednesday, with the blue-chip Stoxx 50 closing up more than 2 per cent, while the pan-European Stoxx 600 jumped by 1.5 per cent. <\/p>\n
Chip giant Nvidia\u2019s results \u2060after market close on Wednesday could test \u2060the AI-driven momentum. Yet, European semiconductor \u200bshares gained in advance of the announcement, with ASML and Infineon up by 6.7 per cent and 5.3 per cent. <\/p>\n
German software company SAP bucked the trend, dipping by more than 2.1 per cent after a week of significant gains.<\/p>\n
Exchange operator Euronext advanced 5 per cent after reporting first-quarter earnings above market expectations. <\/p>\n
Big banking names also moved higher, with Intesa Sanpaolo, BBVA and Santander up by 3 per cent or more, while BNP Paribas added 2 per cent. <\/p>\n
LONDON<\/p>\n
UK shares inched higher after a softer-than-expected April inflation print offered relief to investors. The benchmark FTSE 100 added 1.1 per cent, and the mid-cap FTSE 250 was up 1.2 per cent. <\/p>\n
Aerospace \u200cand defence stocks \u2060rose, led by a 5.2 per cent gain in shares of defence contractor Babcock International after Peel Hunt upgraded the stock to \u201cbuy\u201d from \u201cadd\u201d.<\/p>\n
Marks and Spencer jumped 6.6 per cent after the high-street retail giant forecasted that it would return to profit growth this year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, British Land added 2.4 per cent after the real estate giant revealed stronger-than-expected profits amid growing demand for office space from the booming AI and tech sectors.<\/p>\n
NEW YORK<\/p>\n
Wall Street\u2019s main indices rose amid, while traders awaited Nvidia\u2019s results for clues on whether a tech-led surge from 2026 lows has more room to run.<\/p>\n
The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite were all ahead by around 1 per cent by the closing bell in Europe. <\/p>\n
US crude fell below $100 on a report that President Donald Trump has said the US is in the \u201cfinal stages\u201d of talks with Iran. <\/p>\n
\u201cInvestors continue to face a complex investment landscape,\u201d said Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi at UBS Chief Investment Office. \u201cIn a world of fast-changing narratives, one of the biggest risks is a loss of investment discipline. Staying invested is more likely to be rewarded than trying to time the market.\u201d<\/p>\n
With so many geopolitical headlines, Nvidia\u2019s earnings come at just the right time, when the market needs some reassurance, according to James Demmert at Main Street Research.<\/p>\n
For Nvidia, the focus is typically not whether it beats expectations, but by how much, given it has topped both revenue and earnings estimates for 13 consecutive quarters, according to Adam Turnquist at LPL Financial.<\/p>\n
Nvidia rose 2 per cent on Wednesday. Its share price has declined the day after the last three earnings reports, even though the company posted solid results. The options market is pricing in a 5.5 per cent move in either direction in the wake of the upcoming report.<\/p>\n
The broader chip sector also advanced on Wednesday. Marvell Technology rose 7.8 per cent, Intel gained 6.3 per cent and Micron Technology \u200cadded \u200c3.6 per cent.<\/p>\n
Among other movers, Intuit declined 3.5 per cent. \u2060Reuters, citing an internal memo, reported that the company is laying off about 3,000 employees. \u2013 Additional reporting: Bloomberg, Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Global stocks advanced as crude oil prices fell after US president Donald Trump signalled that talks with Iran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,7715,218,219,7863,14916,969,56114,99190,61,13321,105597,60,33160,233,199281,1899,105598,199282,80,37437],"class_list":["post-459783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-aib","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-bank-of-ireland","tag-bnp-paribas","tag-donald-trump","tag-euronext","tag-fbd","tag-ie","tag-intel","tag-intesa-sanpaolo","tag-ireland","tag-marks-spencer-ms","tag-nvidia","tag-origin-enterprises","tag-ryanair","tag-santander","tag-sap-solutions","tag-technology","tag-uniphar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}