Feb 12 (Reuters) - European shares hit a record high on Thursday, with French stocks leading gains among regional benchmarks as investors welcomed positive corporate earnings from the likes of Legrand
European Markets Decline from Record Highs Amid Financial Sector Drop
Market Overview and Sector Performance
By Avinash P, Johann M Cherian and Ragini Mathur
Financial Sector Decline
Feb 12 (Reuters) - European shares fell on Thursday, erasing earlier gains that pushed markets to record highs, as financial and industrial stocks tumbled and investors digested a flood of corporate earnings.
Industrial Sector Performance
The pan-European STOXX 600 index finished 0.5% lower at 618.52 points, with most regional benchmarks also reversing course to close in negative territory.
Luxury Stocks Resilience
Financials weighed heavily on the index, with the banking sub-index sliding 1.8%. HSBC and Banco Santander each dropped more than 2%, leading the sector's decline.
M&A Activity Impact
Industrial goods and services sub-index dropped 1.2% with Dutch payments processor Adyen falling 21.9%, marking its steepest one-day fall in over two years, after cautious guidance.
DSV, the world's largest freight forwarder, posted its sharpest decline in roughly six years, sinking 10.5%.
Meanwhile, the European utilities index was down 0.4%, as it tracked a sharp slide in carbon prices after suggestions the EU should intervene in the market, a move that investors fear could squeeze the sector’s earnings.
"I think utility companies are the obvious targets. It's going to hit margins and it also runs the risk of increasing inflationary pressures if those costs are passed on to the large energy consumers," said Nick Saunders, CEO of trading platform Webull UK.
LUXURY STOCKS UP
Luxury stocks bucked the trend, rising 1.3% as France's Hermès touched a near one-month high following another quarter of steady revenue growth, powered by robust sales in the U.S. and Japan.
On the M&A front, money manager Schroders <SDR.L> shot up 28.6% after U.S. asset manager Nuveen agreed to buy the UK company for 9.9 billion pounds ($13.5 billion), creating a group with combined assets under management of nearly $2.5 trillion.
Despite Thursday's sharp losses, the STOXX 600 remains up 4.4% year-to-date, having navigated headwinds including U.S.-Europe trade tensions over Greenland and recent selloffs in commodities and technology stocks.
Among other movers, Swedish biopharmaceutical firm Camurus slumped 24%, marking its biggest daily drop in over eight years, after reporting downbeat fourth-quarter revenue.
French drugmaker Sanofi fell 4.2% after abruptly ousting its CEO, Paul Hudson, underscoring rising pressure from U.S. vaccine headwinds and a stalled turnaround since he took the reins in 2019.
Legrand shares rose 3% after the French electrical and digital building infrastructure group said strong data-centre demand was helping its expansion, supporting a slight increase in its medium-term profitability targets.
(Reporting by Avinash P, Johann M Cherian and Ragini Mathur in Bengaluru; editing by Harikrishnan Nair and Mark Heinrich)
