European Stocks Close Higher Again

(RTTNews) - European stocks closed broadly higher on Tuesday, extending recent gains, amid continued optimism the Federal Reserve will be less aggressive with regard to interest rate hikes.

Data from the Labor Department showed its producer price index for final demand inched up by 0.2% in October, matching a revised uptick in September. Economists expected producer prices to climb by 0.5% compared to the 0.4% increase originally reported for the previous month.

The data has added to optimism about the Federal Reserve slowing the pace of interest rate hikes as soon as next month.

The pan European Stoxx 600 ended 0.37% up. Germany's DAX gained 0.46% and France's CAC 40 climbed 0.49%, while the U.K.'s FTSE 100 ended 0.21% down. Switzerland's SMI gained 0.24%.

Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Turkiye posted sharp to moderate gains.

Norway edged up marginally, while Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Russia and Sweden ended weak.

In the UK market, Centrica gained about 3.5% after the company launched a 250 million sterling share buyback.

Melrose Industries and Scottish Mortgage gained 3 to 3.5%. BAE Systems, RightMove, Glencore, Compass Group and Pearson also ended notably higher.

Ocado Group plunged 16.8%. Vodafone Group ended nearly 8% down after slashing its full-year forecasts and launching a cost-cutting plan.

Endeavour Mining, B&M European Value Retail, Severn Trent, Fresnillo and Hargreaves Lansdown ended lower by 2 to 3%.

In the German market, Bayer rallied more than 4%. Infineon Technologies, Puma, Deutsche Boerse, RWE, Porsche Automobil, MTU Aero Engines, Deutsche Bank and Qiagen gained 1 to 2.5%.

HelloFresh drifted down nearly 6%. Continental, BASF, Covestro and Zalando ended lower by 1.5 to 2.6%.

In Paris, Teleperformance surged nearly 11% after Citigroup upgraded its rating on the stock to "buy" from "neutral."

Veolia, Thales and Sodexo gained 3 to 3.3%. Safran, Renault, STMicroElectronics and Airbus ended higher by 1 to 2%.

Pernod Ricard declined more than 2%. WorldLine, L'Oreal and Valeo settled lower by 1 to 1.4%.

In the Swiss market, Credit Suisse drifted lower after the Swiss bank said it would sell a significant portion of its securitized products group (SPG) to Apollo Global Management.

In economic releases, data released by Destatis showed German wholesale prices climbed 17.4% year-over-year in October, slower than the 19.9% spike in September. This was the slowest rate of increase since February, when prices had risen 16.6%.

French consumer price inflation accelerated to a new record high in October, as initially estimated, latest data from the statistical office Insee showed. Consumer price inflation rose to 6.2% in October from 5.6% in September. That was in line with flash data published on October 28.

Separately, a survey showed France's unemployment rate fell slightly in the third quarter. The ILO jobless rate slid to 7.3%, as expected, from 7.4% in the second quarter.

The number of unemployed decreased by 17,000 over the quarter and reached 2.3 million.

The U.K. unemployment rose slightly in the third quarter ahead of the economy entering a prolonged period of recession, the Office for National Statistics said.

The ILO jobless rate rose slightly to 3.6% during July to September from 3.5% in three months to August. The rate was forecast to remain unchanged at 3.5%.

Germany's economic sentiment improved strongly in November to its highest level in five months on hopes that inflation is set to ease in the coming months, results of a closely-watched survey showed, though the overall outlook for the biggest euro area economy is bleak.

The indicator of economic sentiment rose 22.5 points to minus 36.7 from minus 59.2 in October, results of the monthly survey by the Mannheim-based research institute ZEW showed.