Stock markets rise on busy corporate earnings day

Investors digested a spate of company results on Thursday, and shrugged off a worse-than-expected US  economic downturn.

In foreign exchange, the dollar traded around 20-year peaks versus the yen and at the highest level in more than five years against the euro as the Federal Reserve aggressively hikes US interest rates.

Trading is volatile across major assets as investors remain on high alert over a range of crises including the Ukraine war, surging inflation, higher interest rates and Chinese Covid lockdowns.

Attention is on the ongoing earnings season which has seen a mixed bag of results that have weighed on tech firms.

There was some cheer, however, from a forecast-beating reading by Facebook parent Meta on Wednesday, which analysts said could provide some relief to the sector.

Twitter released mixed first-quarter results Thursday, with revenues missing estimates but active users rising, three days after agreeing to be acquired by Tesla boss Elon Musk.

Apple and Amazon are also releasing quarterly results later on Thursday.

Wall Street opened higher, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq up 1.3 percent in early deals.

European markets were also up in afternoon trading while Asia’s major markets closed higher.

“The market is going to try, try again to get some rebound momentum going to repair what has been a damaging month,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare.

“There is a lot of repairing that needs to be done, too,” O’Hare said, noting that the major US indices were sharply down for the month.

US government data, meanwhile, showed the economy shrank by 1.4 percent in the first quarter as the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and tapering of government spending hit consumers and business.

Investors are also worried about surging inflation, which is causing central banks around the globe to hike interest rates.

In Germany, consumer prices rose at their fastest pace in four decades in April, climbing to 7.4 percent, data showed Thursday.

Sweden’s central bank on Thursday became the latest to lift rates, from zero to 0.25 percent.

The Federal Reserve is next week expected to lift US interest rates by half a point and signal further big increases through the year.

But the Bank of Japan decided to keep its ultra-loose monetary policy unchanged on Thursday, prompting the Tokyo stock market to close higher.

So far the European Central Bank has refused to tighten borrowing costs and on Thursday ECB vice-president Luis de Guindos said a surge in eurozone consumer prices is “very close” to reaching its peak.

Soaring prices are impacting consumers and businesses everywhere.

British consumer goods giant Unilever announced a jump in revenue after it passed on higher costs to customers.

McDonald’s also reported rising first-quarter sales on price hikes, though profits tumbled due to an unspecified tax issue.

In other business news, Standard Chartered’s stock jumped in London after the bank, which focuses on Asia and emerging markets around the world, raised its annual profit forecast following a strong first quarter.