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LVMH market cap tops $500 billion - a record for Europe
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Phillips jumps on better-than-expected results
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Software AG skyrockets on buyout offer
(Updates to market close, adds comments)
By Shreyashi Sanyal
April 24 (Reuters) - European shares ended flat on
Monday at the beginning of a week packed with high-profile
earnings, while shares of Dutch health technology company
Philips jumped after strong first-quarter results.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index closed at 468.97 points, keeping to a narrow three-point range for most of the day.
"Monday's session seems to provide the template for most of the week – tentative gains that then slip away," said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online trading platform IG. Philips NV jumped 13.8% after the company posted better-than-expected first-quarter results and said it had set aside 575 million euros ($631 million) related to lawsuits over its recall of respiratory devices.
Healthcare shares rose 0.1%, while technology shares fell 1.0%, giving back most of its gains from Friday.
Big banks Barclays Plc , Santander , Deutsche Bank AG , UBS Group AG and consumer companies like Nestle SA , Reckitt and Unilever Plc report results this week. Credit Suisse , in what is likely to be its last time reporting results, said 61 billion Swiss francs ($68 billion) in assets left the bank in the first quarter and that outflows were continuing, as its state-engineered marriage with UBS is expected to be completed soon.
After a chaotic month in March, European shares have risen 2.4% so far in April, tracking their best monthly performance since January as cheap valuations and China's reopening bets is boosted firms.
Luxury group LVMH surpassed a market capitalization of $500 billion, making it the largest valuation on record for a European company and the first above the $500-billion mark.
"It (LVMH) might not escape unscathed if a recession does materialise, but as the 2020 and 2022 rebounds in its shares demonstrate, there is plenty of appetite for a stake in the ever-growing global luxury market," Beauchamp added. Investors will also monitor results of some of the biggest U.S. companies including Microsoft Corp , Google parent Alphabet Inc and Amazon.com Inc this week. German business morale rose in April, adding to positive signs as Europe's largest economy hopes to have dodged a winter recession, according to a survey.
Shares of Software AG skyrocketed 49.0% after
private equity firm Silver Lake offered to buy the German
software developer.
UK's Medica Group also surged 33.8% after the
telemedicine services company recommended a takeover offer from
private equity firm IK Investment.
Sweden's Avanza dropped 9.4% as the financial
services provider missed first-quarter profit expectations.
(Reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal, Shashwat Chauhan and Shubham
Batra in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K, Sonia Cheema and Josie
Kao)
