Europe open: Shares up as bond yields fall; UK bank stocks hit by tax talk
European shares rallied at the open on Friday after a rebound in US shares overnight on the back of a sharp drop in Treasury yields.
The pan-regional Stoxx 600 index was up 0.25% to 641 at 0708 GMT with most major bourses higher.
Britain’s FTSE fell 0.35%, led by banking shares on reports that Finance Minister John Healey was set to tax massive bank profits in his upcoming budget to raise much needed cash. The news sent shares in Barclays, NatWest and Lloyds lower.
In the US overnight the Dow jumped more than 1% despite hotter-than-expected inflation figures and ongoing concerns about AI-related spending.
The S&P 500 gained 0.3% and the Nasdaq Composite edged up 0.1%.
In other equity news, shares in Schneider Electric fell slightly despite the French industrial group raising its 2026 core profit and revenue targets for the second time this year as it looks to cash in on supplying power to cloud companies building AI data centres.
Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com