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Early market roundup: European stocks up; Shell up despite profit fall

Stock prices in London, Paris and Frankfurt were in the green on Friday morning, amid new first-quarter earnings, with NatWest shares up as pretax profit climbed.

Most notably, Beijing’s commerce ministry on Friday confirmed the US had reached out for negotiations on tariffs and that it was ‘currently evaluating’ the offer.

However, it added: ‘If the US wants to talk, it should show its sincerity to do so, be prepared to correct its wrong practices and cancel unilateral tariffs.’

The FTSE 100 index was up 59.69 points, 0.7%, at 8,556.49. The FTSE 250 was up 33.42 points, 0.2%, at 20,168.39, and the AIM All-Share was up 1.49 points, 0.2%, at 701.47.

The Cboe UK 100 was up 0.7% at 853.51, the Cboe UK 250 was up 0.1% at 17,681.57, and the Cboe Small Companies was up 0.2% at 15,397.10.

Among large-caps, NatWest was up 2.1%.

The banker reported total income of £3.98 billion for its first quarter, up 15% annually, while net interest income climbed 14% to £3.03 billion and the CET1 ratio rose 20 basis points to 13.8%.

Operating pretax profit grew 36% to £1.81 billion from £1.33 billion.

For 2025, NatWest said it expects a RoTE at the upper end of the 15% to 16% guidance range.

‘NatWest is in good shape as it edges closer to full private ownership,’ commented RBC Brewin’s John Moore. ‘NatWest’s recent success has been built on cutting costs, simplicity, and keeping its capital base tight, providing it with a strong balance sheet and solid foundation to build on. With some of its peers potentially retreating from the UK, that may open up opportunities for acquisition or other forms of expansion, which would provide further scale while sticking to the three pillars of the bank’s strategy.’

Shell rose 2.9%.

This was despite pretax profit falling 19% on-year in the first quarter to $8.60 billion, while total revenue declined 6.1% to $70.15 billion.

However, Shell also announced a $3.5 billion share buyback and declared a 35.8 cents per share dividend, unchanged annually but up from 34.4 cents the year before.

On the FTSE 250, Watches of Switzerland lost 4.7% after RBC cut it to ’sector perform’ from ’outperform’ and reduced the target to 375 pence from 640p.

Gfinity led AIM, up 44%.

The London-based e-sports and gaming services company said it is now commercialising 0M’s Connected IQ technology under their licence agreement, and that it has formed the new Yentra.AI business unit to unite its ‘software engineering, artificial intelligence consulting and web 3 development for commercial customers’.

In European equities on Friday, the CAC 40 in Paris and the DAX 40 in Frankfurt were up 1.4%.

Elsewhere in Europe, Ukraine and Russia remain far from reaching a peace deal despite some recent progress, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

‘They’re closer, but they are still far apart and it’s going to take a real breakthrough here very soon to make this possible,’ Rubio said in an interview with Fox News.

Otherwise, Rubio added, ‘the president is going to have to make a decision about how much more time we’re going to dedicate to this.’

The pound was quoted higher at $1.3300 early on Friday in London, compared to $1.3283 at the equities close on Thursday. The euro stood higher at $1.1323, against $1.1274. Against the yen, the dollar was trading at JP¥145.22, lower compared to JP¥145.50.

In Asia on Friday, the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo was up 1.0%. In China, the Shanghai Composite was closed for Labor Day. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was up 1.7%. The S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney closed up 1.1%.

In the US on Thursday, Wall Street ended higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.2%, the S&P 500 up 0.6% and the Nasdaq Composite up 1.5%.

The US nonfarm payrolls report is due out on Friday afternoon.

‘The market is expecting a solid jobs report for April, said XTB’s Kathleen Brooks. ’US non-farm payrolls are expected to expand by 138k, and the unemployment rate is expected to remain steady at 4.2%. Average hourly earnings are expected to nudge higher to 3.9% YoY, from 3.8%.‘

‘This report is likely to suggest that the US labour market, although slowing, is far from falling off a cliff. However, there could be signs of the slowdown to come and it is worth noting the breadth of job creation. There are concerns that job growth is narrowing, as a growing number of sectors scale back hiring due to heightened economic uncertainty caused by President Trump’s tariff policies.’

Brent oil was quoted higher at $62.25 a barrel early in London on Friday from $61.38 late Thursday.

Gold was quoted lower at $3,259.80 an ounce against $3,311.72.

Still to come on Friday’s economic calendar is eurozone consumer price inflation and unemployment.

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