U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable meeting on the administration’s “ratepayer protection pledge” in the Indian Treaty Room at the White House on March 4, 2026 in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n
Win McNamee | Getty Images<\/p>\n
LONDON \u2014 European stocks are set to open in mixed territory again on Thursday as market participants follow geopolitical developments in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The U.K.’s FTSE<\/a> index is seen opening 0.5% higher, Germany’s DAX<\/a> down 0.2%, France’s CAC 40<\/a>\u00a0down 0.25% and Italy’s FTSE MIB<\/a> 0.2% lower, according to data from IG.<\/p>\n Spain’s IBEX<\/a> is expected to open 0.5% lower with the country in trouble with U.S. President Donald Trump after it refused to allow U.S. forces to use its bases<\/a> for strikes on Iran. “Spain has been terrible,” Trump said on Tuesday. “We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain.”<\/p>\n Global market attention remains focused on the U.S. and Israel’s war on Iran, with attacks intensifying over the last 24 hours. <\/p>\n Israel on Wednesday launched a fresh round of\u00a0attacks on Tehran<\/a>, with the country’s defense minister vowing to “crush” the Iranian regime’s capabilities. Meanwhile, the U.S. said has destroyed\u00a017 Iranian ships<\/a>\u00a0and nearly 2,000 targets.<\/p>\n Follow CNBC’s live blog on Iran here: War powers vote fails in the Senate, allowing Trump to continue Iran strikes<\/a><\/p>\n In Iran, senior clerics responsible for selecting the next supreme leader are considering naming\u00a0Mojtaba Khamenei<\/a>, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to the top post, according to reports.<\/p>\n The U.S. and Israel’s endgame when it comes to “Operation Epic Fury” remains uncertain, and experts have told CNBC they could get bogged down<\/a> in the war if the Iranian regime proves more resilient than expected.<\/p>\n Earnings come from Merck<\/a>, DHL Group<\/a>, Reckitt Benckiser<\/a>, Galderma Group<\/a> and Universal Music Group<\/a> while data releases include the latest EU retail sales figures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable meeting on the administration’s “ratepayer protection pledge” in the Indian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[147304,157457,105611,114,357,2968,2969,160142,160144,54,2973,2226,2970,2967,160146,56648,170,85,150425,87,150423,20869,160143,150429,151649,46,2971,56642,64251,38668,55533,56641,160145,2727,3336,1032,150424,55306,151303,150428,2965,2966],"class_list":["post-322755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-gc26j","tag-lco26q","tag-ali-khamenei","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-cac-40-index","tag-dax","tag-daxor-corp","tag-deutsche-post-ag","tag-donald-trump","tag-foreign-policy","tag-france","tag-ftse-100","tag-ftse-mib","tag-galderma-group-ag","tag-general-dynamics-corp","tag-germany","tag-il","tag-invesco-db-oil-fund","tag-iran","tag-ishares-msci-germany-etf","tag-ishares-msci-israel-etf","tag-ishares-msci-spain-etf","tag-ishares-msci-united-kingdom-etf","tag-ishares-u-s-aerospace-defense-etf","tag-israel","tag-italy","tag-lockheed-martin-corp","tag-lp","tag-merck-co-inc","tag-merck-kgaa","tag-northrop-grumman-corp","tag-reckitt-benckiser-group-plc","tag-spain","tag-tehran","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-oil-fund","tag-universal-music-group-nv","tag-us-bancorp","tag-vanguard-ftse-europe-index-fund-etf-shares","tag-world-economy","tag-world-markets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}