Most European bourses are lower this Friday following on from the sell off over in the US – especially with tech stocks suffering after Amazon reported its lowest profit for seven quarters and forecast a further slip over the next three months.
France's economy continues to grow in the second quarter by 0.5% representing the ninth quarterly rise. This growth is being supported by a surge in exports – which rose by 3.1% in April to June, while imports only rose by 0.2%. Consumer spending rose too but business investment slowed. These figures will come as a boost for the country's new Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron who was elected in May on the promise of overhauling the French economy.
BT's profits slumped more than 40% in the first quarter after it was forced to pay out £225m to two shareholders following the accounting scandal at its Italian operation. {CHART} BT is paying the money to Deutsche Telekom and Orange to avoid legal action over the issue. The share price plunged £8 billion in January after the company revealed the details of its problems in Italy, and it remains 20% lower than this time last year.
Barclays has reported a net loss of £1.21bln for the first half of this year thanks to the weakness of the pound, a charge from the miss-selling of payment protection insurance and a loss from the sale of its Africa unit which was part of Barclays' plan to focus on the UK and US. The bank has set aside an extra £700m to meet compensation claims for the miss-selling of payment protection insurance. But overall - the bank revealed a chunky 13 per cent jump in half year pre-tax profit to £2.34bn.
Looking ahead to next week – here in Europe there's both the consumer price index and unemployment figures for the Eurozone as well as German retail sales. On Tuesday it's the Eurozone's GDP report for the second quarter and manufacturing reports from both France and Germany, mid-week it's the Eurozone Producer Price index and Thursday is super Thursday with the Bank of Englands' interest rate decision, quantitative easing report, MPC meeting minutes and inflation report. Friday, more numbers from Europe's biggest economy – with Germany's factory orders, construction data.
That's all from me this week In London – have a fantastic weekend and I'll see you on Monday!
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--- Written by Katie Pilbeam, DailyFX
