Europe close: Stocks end mostly higher despite drag from Tech

(Sharecast News) - Stocks on the Continent traded mostly on the front foot at the end of the week, helped by the positive tone to trading on Wall Street. "As traders continue to digest fresh corporate earnings, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 rebound following their sharp losses from the day before," said Axel Rudolph, senior market analyst at IG.

"Investors seem to put aside disappointing results by Netflix and Tesla which provoked Thursday's rout and instead focus on next week's Alphabet, Microsoft and Intel earnings among a plethora of others."

By the end of trading, the pan-European Stoxx 600 had edged up 0.32% to 465.40, alongside similarly-sized gains for the other main regional indices.

The German Dax was the exception, drifting lower by 0.17% to 16,177.22.

Some investors might also have opted to keep their cards close to their chests ahead of potentially key central bank policy meetings in the euro area, Japan and US scheduled for the following week.

Also on the horizon was the 28-30 July Chinese Politburo meeting, although according to Morgan Stanley the scale and areas of the economy to be targeted had yet to be confirmed.

Dragging on the German benchmark gauge were shares of software maker SAP which earlier reported weaker-than-expected second quarter sales at its cloud unit.

Sentiment towards technology issues more generally was also hit by news overnight that Taiwan Semiconductor had cut its outlook and pushed back the expected date for the start of production in the at its US plant in Arizona until 2025.

The Stoxx 600 Technology sub-index was off by 0.44% as a result, but ended the day well off its intra-day lows.

Basic Resources also weighed on the Stoxx 600 with the corresponding sub-index retreating by 1.51%.