European stocks opened mixed on Friday as investors digested a series of interest rate decisions and looked ahead to tense budget talks in France.
pan-european Stocks 600 There was little change in London by 8:25 a.m., with most major regional stock exchanges trading flat.
Looking at individual stocks, major sportswear companies puma and adidas They fell 1.9% and 0.7%, respectively, on concerns about U.S. rivals. nike’s achievements spread to companies across the Atlantic.
Nike’s second-quarter results beat Wall Street expectations, but investors were spooked by a weak Chinese market and the continuing impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs.
Nike stock fell 10% in after-hours trading and is down 20% from its February high.
Puma was one of the worst performing stocks on the Stoxx 600 index on Friday morning.
Monetary policy updates from the Bank of England, European Central Bank, Norges Bank and Riksbank are scheduled to be released on Thursday, leaving local investors reeling from a day packed with central bank decisions. All banks left their key interest rates unchanged, except for the Bank of England, which cut the rate by 25 basis points.
The ECB has raised its forecast for economic growth in the euro area, saying it expects growth of up to 1.4% in 2025 and 1.2% in 2026.
European traders will also be keeping an eye on news from France on Friday. In France, parliamentarians are scheduled to hold austerity talks. A joint committee of politicians is scheduled to hammer out the terms of a 2026 spending plan on Friday, but they are divided along political and ideological lines and could have trouble finding agreement. If the situation fails, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecorne will be forced to take emergency measures to ensure that spending and borrowing can continue into the new year until a budget is passed.
L’Ecornu said last month that the possibility of not passing a budget before the new year was a “looming danger for France,” according to local media.
The country has already been hit by political turmoil in France this year, with L’Ecornu, the fifth French prime minister in the past five years, to resign after 27 days in office, only to be reinstated later that week.
Elsewhere, European Union officials announced on Friday that they had approved a 90 billion euro ($105.5 billion) aid package for Ukraine, opting not to use frozen Russian assets to fund loans to Kiev.
Today’s European economic data includes GfK’s latest German consumer confidence statistics, UK retail sales and Italy’s business confidence report.
On the other side of the Atlantic, investors around the world will be keeping an eye on existing home sales numbers and Michigan end consumer sentiment data for December. Stock futures were mixed on Wall Street on Friday morning after cooling inflation data fueled a fourth straight day of declines in U.S. stocks on Thursday.
