Europe midday: Stoxx rallies as French PM survives confidence votes

(Sharecast News) - European shares rallied on Thursday with France in focus as Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu survived two no confidence votes.



The pan-European Stoxx 600 index was 0.40% higher with the UK FTSE 100 down 0.08% and France's CAC 40 rallying by 0.69%.

Lecornu on Wednesday said he would suspend a controversial pension reform until after the 2027 election, giving equities a boost. He now has the tricky task of getting the rest of the government's unpopular budget measures through parliament, including spending cuts.

Meanwhile across the channel, the UK economy expanded modestly in August, according to official data, supported by the UK's dominant services sector.

GDP grew by 0.3% in the three months to August, in line with expectations and a slight increase on the 0.2% uplift seen in July.

"The US-China spat looks set to take another turn after (President Donald) Trump warned that he could terminate the purchase of cooking oil in response to the recent collapse in Chinese purchases of US Soybean," said Scopemarkets analyst Joshua Mahony.

"Despite Trump's efforts to calm markets over the weekend, we have seen subsequent claims that China seeks to turn up the pressure by further deepening the trade conflict in the knowledge that it could spark a sharp slump in US equity markets. Thus far we are yet to see any substantial pullback for US stocks, with the Dow, SPX, and Nasdaq all having recovered much of the downside seen on Friday."



In equity news, shares in Premier Inn owner Whitbread fell as the company downgraded its full-year profit outlook for Germany on Thursday as it posted a drop in group interim profits and revenue.

Nestle shares jumped as new CEO Philipp Navratil laid out plans to sack 16,000 workers in the next two years in an effort to boost sales and cut costs.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com