European stocks were little changed, with many markets closed for the May Day holiday, but New York rose on the back of strong corporate earnings reports, despite the ongoing stalemate in the Strait of Hormuz.
Dublin
Leading Irish shares performed strongly in advance of the May bank holiday. Food and ingredients group Kerry rose 3.36 per cent to €72.20 on Friday.
Airline Ryanair rose 1.54 per cent to €22.42 on speculation that Middle East tensions could ease following reports of Iranian overtures to the US.
Airlines have struggled for several weeks as the ongoing closure of Hormuz drove up jet fuel prices, prompting some carriers to cancel peak season flights. However, no Irish airline has yet axed services as a consequence of this.
RM Block
There was some activity in the banks, with Bank of Ireland climbing 1.92 per cent to €16.74. AIB was up 0.82 per cent at €9.798.
London
London’s blue-chip FTSE 100 closed slightly lower on Friday, dragged down by losses in heavyweight energy stocks and drugmaker AstraZeneca, while a looming UK public holiday thinned trade.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 index ended 0.1 per cent lower at 10,363.93 points, while the midcap FTSE 250 climbed 0.3 per cent.
AstraZeneca shed 3.1 per cent to 13,512 pence sterling after a US Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted against recommending an experimental breast cancer treatment that the drugmaker has said is central to its long-term growth ambitions.
NatWest reported a 12 per cent rise in first-quarter profit, but its shares fell 3.4 per cent to 565.6p after the lender’s non-interest income was 7 per cent below analysts’ forecasts.
Pearson rose 3.1 per cent to 1,115p after the education company said demand for its virtual learning products drove a 4 per cent rise in first-quarter underlying group sales.
Consumer staples giant Unilever jumped 2.6 per cent to hit a one-month high of 4,407p, while engineering company Rolls-Royce added 1.5 per cent to 1,199.2p, extending gains a day after it reiterated its profit outlook.
Spirits maker and Guinness brewer Diageo ended 0.7 per cent higher at 82.14p. It was up as much as 2.8 per cent during the day after US president Donald Trump said he was removing tariffs on UK-made whiskey.
Europe
The Stoxx Europe 600 was little-changed, with many markets closed for May Day.
Air France KLM was up 3.8 per cent at €9.06. Automaker BMW was up 0.4 per cent at €77.92.
New York
Oil major Exxon Mobil was down more than 1 per cent and trading at about the $152 mark in afternoon trading, despite reporting stronger-than-expected results. The company reported a sharp decline in net income due to disruption in the Middle East.
Friday’s advance in the S&P 500 left the gauge on track for a fifth straight week of gains. Apple climbed on a solid outlook. US crude dropped to about $102 on reports Iran delivered a new proposal to the US amid efforts to turn a fragile ceasefire into a lasting peace.
Wall Street has brushed off worries about the potential economic fallout from the war, with signs of corporate resilience sparking a rally that drove stocks to their best month since 2020. About 81 per cent of the S&P 500’s companies have beaten first-quarter earnings estimates, according to data compiled by news agency Bloomberg.
Tech company Reddit was up about 12 per cent after projecting sales in the current period that surpassed estimates, continuing a streak of strong revenue growth powered by the company’s surging advertising business.
Estée Lauder rose more than 3.7 per cent after announcing plans to cut as many as 3,000 more jobs and generate a further $200 million of savings to help boost its turnaround plan.
