By Peter Nurse
Investing.com -- European stock markets traded largely higher Tuesday, helped by a batch of largely positive corporate earnings from a number of corporate giants.
At 3:30 AM ET (0730 GMT), the DAX in Germany traded largely flat, the U.K.’s FTSE 100 climbed 0.3% and the CAC 40 in France rose 0.8%.
The corporate earnings season remained in full flow in Europe Tuesday, with the banking sector leading the way.
Societe Generale (OTC:SCGLY) stock climbed 3% as the French lender, the country’s third largest, raised its forecast for the full year after it swung back to profit in the second quarter. The results were helped by a rebound in its French retail banking business.
Standard Chartered (OTC:SCBFF) stock rose 0.4% after the U.K.-based bank posted a better-than-expected 57% jump in its first-half pretax profit while also announcing a $250 million share buyback and resuming interim dividend payments.
Elsewhere, BP (NYSE:BP) stock climbed 3.3% after the U.K. oil major followed its main rivals by increasing its dividend and boosting its share buybacks after higher crude prices allowed it to return to profit too.
Stellantis (PA:STLA) stock rose 4.1% after the carmaker raised its full-year operating profit target after strong first-half results, while Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY) stock rose 0.3% after the French drugmaker confirmed it had made a $3.2 billion offer to buy U.S. biotech company Translate Bio (NASDAQ:TBIO) to strengthen its capability in messenger RNA, the technology underlying the Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) and Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines.
On the flip side, BMW (DE:BMWG) stock fell 3.3% after the German luxury carmaker warned that the global semiconductor chip shortage and rising raw materials prices would hurt its second half performance. Even with these caveats, the auto giant raised its profit forecast for 2021.
In Asia earlier Tuesday, the stock of gaming and social media giant Tencent Holdings (OTC:TCEHY) slumped as much as 10% as investors fretted that Chinese authorities could now turn their regulatory focus on the gaming sector in wake of Beijing’s recent clampdown on the education and ride-hailing sectors.
In economic news, the main focus will be on the June Eurozone PPI release, with the annual figure expected to rise further from the 9.6% level seen in May.
Elsewhere, oil prices edged higher Tuesday, with the focus on the latest forecasts of U.S. crude and product inventories for last week from the American Petroleum Institute.
At 3:30 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.1% higher at $71.33 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 0.1% to $72.93.
Additionally, gold futures fell 0.6% to $1,812.10/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.1% higher at 1.1882.