European markets close higher amid major earnings reports

LONDON — European stocks ended Thursday in positive territory as investors looked to earnings reports for clues on business activity and confidence in the region.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed the session up 0.4%. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 index added 0.7%, France’s CAC 40 advanced 0.2%, and Italy’s FTSE MIB also saw gains of 0.4%. Germany’s DAX also edged higher, ending up 0.3%.

It was a busy day for earnings in Europe with Kering, Roche Holding, Unilever, Vinci, Thales, LSEG, Dassault Systemes, Antofagasta, Swedbank, Nokia and Lloyds Banking Group among the big names reporting third-quarter figures.

Enterprise software firm SAP released earnings late on Wednesday, which missed analyst expectations. The German company reported a 7% increase in revenue for the third quarter of 9.08 billion euros ($10.53 billion), below expectations of 9.15 billion euros ($7.96 billion), according to consensus figures compiled by LSEG.

However, it saw gains of 22% in its cloud revenue, with CEO Christian Klein putting it down to increasing AI and data cloud market share.

“For Q4 we are executing against a strong pipeline – which gives us confidence in our accelerating total revenue growth ambition for 2026,” he said in a statement. SAP’s shares ended the session up 2.2%.

Gucci-owner Kering also reported after the bell on Wednesday. The group’s revenue totaled 3.4 billion euros in the quarter, down 5% on a comparable basis but it beat expectations of 3.31 billion euros, per a consensus compiled by FactSet. Gucci sales — which typically make up close to half of Kering’s total revenues — came in just shy of forecasts at 1.3 billion euros, down 14% on a comparable basis on the year before. Its shares closed 8.7% higher.

In financial services, Lloyds Banking Group on Thursday reported pre-tax profit of almost £1.2 billion, slightly higher than consensus estimates of about £1 billion, but down from the £1.8 billion of the same period last year. It comes after the British lender announced earlier this month an additional £800 million charge relating to customer compensation arising from the U.K. car finance misselling scandal. Its shares were up 1.2% at the closing bell.

Shares in Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) lost 0.1% as its net interest income reached 10.4 billion Swedish krona during the third quarter, beating the 10.2 Swedish krona predicted by analysts. The bank’s quarterly-earnings report showed net profits of 7.68 billion Swedish krona for the three-month period, missing the 7.86 billion Swedish krona forecast by analysts, according to LSEG estimates.

Swedbank reported pre-tax profits of 10.8 billion Swedish krona, above the 9.4 billion Swedish krona forecast by analysts. Shares in the Stockholm-listed lender — which has a strong presence in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — fell 0.2% on the day. The bank saw net interest income reach 10.8 billion Swedish krona, above analyst estimates of 10.7 billion Swedish krona.

Oil prices were in focus Thursday after they jumped around 3% in the previous session when the Trump administration imposed further sanctions on Russia’s two largest crude companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. The commodity was up by more than 5% in afternoon trade.

The administration cited Moscow’s “lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine.”

European Union member states also approved new sanctions on Russia on Wednesday, to be formally adopted today, including a ban on liquefied natural gas imports further as the bloc ramps up efforts to decouple its energy supply from Russian oil and gas.

“We really want to deprive Russia of the means to fund this war to end this war,” Kaja Kallas, European Union high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, and vice president of the European Commission, told CNBC’s “Europe Early Edition” on Thursday.

The continent has made progress on this, Kallas noted, but “not all the member states are there,” she said. “So the criticism that we have heard, also from the United States, regarding some of our member states still buying oil and gas, it’s very relevant,” she added.

Kallas spoke ahead of an EU leaders’ summit on Thursday, where further measures will be discussed. Brussels will also discuss using frozen Russian assets as a reparations loan to support Ukraine.

Broader Asia-Pacific markets mostly fell, tracking Wall Street’s declines on Wednesday on concerns about U.S.-China trade relations. Trade fears resurfaced after Reuters reported that the Trump administration is considering curbs on exports to China that are made with U.S. software, citing a U.S. official and three people briefed by U.S. authorities.

U.S. stock markets were in positive territory as investors digested quarterly earnings releases that came out after the previous market close, including from Tesla, IBM, Moderna and Lam Research.

— CNBC’s Hugh Leask, Pia Singh and Nur Hikmah Md Ali contributed to this market report.