European Stocks Rise for Fifth Week to Record High on Earnings

(Bloomberg) -- European equities climbed for the fifth week, the longest streak of weekly gains since mid-April, as robust earnings results outweighed concerns about record-high levels and looming risks. 

The Stoxx 600 Index closed less than 0.1% higher in London, adding 1.7% in the week. Travel stocks, including British Airways parent IAG SA, outperformed amid optimism over the Pfizer Inc.’s Covid-19 pill. Consumer products got a boost as Allegro.eu SA soared after Poland’s largest e-commerce bought a Czech peer in a $1 billion deal. Healthcare stocks underperformed. 

European stocks have extended October’s recovery to return to their all-time highs, as investors were reassured by a strong earnings season and as central banks signal they are in no hurry to raise interest rates just yet.

“We’ve seen a fairly benign reaction to the earnings season, in some respects. Perhaps people were a little bit nervous going into it,” Alastair George, chief investment strategist at Edison Group, said by phone.

“The market troughed in the early part of October and has bounced back since then, and if we look at earnings revisions, they’re not as robust as they were earlier on in the Covid recovery cycle, but we’re not seeing downgrades,” George added.

Among individual movers on Friday, Euronext NV fell the most in a year after the exchange operator’s third-quarter results undershot expectations.

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