European shares edge higher with US election in spotlight; Astrazeneca sinks

By Shashwat Chauhan and Shubham Batra

(Reuters) -Europe's STOXX 600 eked out minor gains on Tuesday led by gains in industrials as investors assessed a slew of downbeat earnings and kept a close eye on voting in a tightly contested U.S. presidential election.

The pan-European benchmark ended 0.1% higher, with most regional markets closing in the green except Italy's FTSE MIB led by 7.1% fall in shares of Ferrari (NYSE:RACE ) that witnessed a drop in third-quarter car shipments.

The industrial sector jumped over 1% after Britain's Melrose (LON:MRON ) Industries got an ugrade on its free cash flow forecast for 2027/28 from Citigroup (NYSE:C ). The aerospace components supplier advanced 4%.

Healthcare shares tanked around 2% following a report that dozens of senior executives at AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN )'s China unit could be implicated in the largest insurance fraud case in the country's pharma sector in years.

AstraZeneca's shares hit an eight-month low, falling over 8% and logged their worst day since March 2020.

The automobiles and parts index slipped 1.8% to notch its lowest level since Jan. 2023.

The focus, however, remained on the close contest between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump as voting began in the U.S. presidential elections, with the latter as the frontrunner, according to most betting market odds.

"A full sweep for Trump is probably good news for U.S. domestic equities, bad news for European and international equities," said Ben Ritchie, head of developed market equities at abrdn.

"If Harris wins, the market reaction will probably be fairly muted, although you may see something of a relief in European and international equities."

Trump's policies on immigration, tax and tariffs are generally viewed as inflationary, which could prompt higher U.S. interest rates.

Among other movers, Vestas, the world's largest maker of wind turbines, slid 12.2% after reporting a lower-than-expected third-quarter operating profit, and also forecast its full-year operating profit margin to be at the lower-end of its target range.

Schroders (LON:SDR ) dropped 13.5% after the British asset manager reported net outflows of client funds of 2.3 billion pounds ($3 billion) for the quarter ended Sept. 30.

Shares of Ambu lost 8.7% after the Danish medical equipment maker reported organic sales growth and EBIT below estimates seen in a company-compiled consensus.



Syensqo rose 7.2% after the Belgian chemical maker unveiled plans to cut around 2% of its workforce and tightened its annual underlying profit forecast for the second time since August.

Germany's Salzgitter (ETR:SZGG ) surged 38.5% after the steelmaker said its second-biggest shareholder GP Günter Papenburg was considering a potential takeover of the company jointly with a partner.

Source: Investing.com