Europe spent Thursday marking time. With the Fed’s Jackson Hole gathering finally here and Jerome Powell set to speak, buyers stayed close to shore, leaving the STOXX 600 essentially unchanged through the U.S. morning. It wasn’t a lack of news so much as a lack of conviction: every pocket of strength had a counterweight, and no one wanted to make a bold call a few hours before the week’s marquee policy signal.
The macro backdrop gave bulls something to point to—just not enough to chase. Preliminary August PMI figures showed the euro area picking up speed, logging its best expansion in more than a year as new orders improved. Yet exports remain a soft spot, and tariff noise continues to muddy the outlook. With currencies and government bond yields offering few surprises, the region’s risk tone felt orderly rather than urgent.
Stock by stock, there was plenty to talk about. WH Smith was the day’s lightning rod after it warned on North American profits tied to an accounting mistake. The punishment was swift and historic, and the ripple effects hit retail space broadly, especially in London. In contrast, Aegon served up the kind of shareholder-friendly cocktail investors relish: a bigger buyback and a look at shifting its base to the U.S. The result—solid gains and a sense that capital returns in European insurance are still very much alive.
There were other notable movers. CTS Eventim’s slide underscored how little patience the market has for anything short of clean beats in this phase of the cycle. Energy names found support after Aker BP flagged a meaningful North Sea discovery, a reminder that old-fashioned geology can still move the needle even in a market obsessed with AI and software multiples. Healthcare and biotech remained uneven, with Novonesis under pressure after its latest print.
The U.S. tone didn’t help. As New York got going on the back foot, European desks leaned even harder into capital preservation. The playbook was familiar: trim high-beta exposure, favor companies with strong balance sheets and dependable cash generation, and wait for the speech. With liquidity thinner than usual, individual names swung more than the indices suggested, but there wasn’t a strong narrative to pull the market meaningfully higher or lower.
By late afternoon, Europe’s tape looked like a textbook “prove it” setup. If Powell sketches a credible path to rate cuts, cyclicals and financials could finally have room to run. If he leans patient, the summer’s sideways drift probably sticks around a while longer. For now, the mix is clear: a steadier economy, a handful of sharp corporate moves, and an index that refuses to budge until policy delivers a nudge.
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