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MILAN (Reuters) – Optimism against China and the United States Trade talks have allowed European equities to stabilize Thursday at their highest levels in nearly four months, although a number unwelcome updates, such as those from Centrica utilities, Technip engineer and forwarder Moeller-Maersk weighed.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index was unchanged at 08:30 GMT, while the trade-sensitive DAX index was up 0.3% and the French CAC 40 added 0.1%.
A report from Reuters said Washington and Beijing had begun to make commitments on the most sensitive issues in their trade dispute, marking the most significant progress ever made to end a seven-nation trade war. month.
Centrica was the biggest loser of the STOXX 600, down 11% after warning that a national energy price cap would affect its 2019 results.
Moeller-Maersk sold 8.7% after meeting fourth quarter expectations, while TechnipFMC also fell more than 7% as oil services posted a fourth-quarter loss.
Prysmian also suffered a sharp drop, down 9%, after the Italian cable manufacturer said that a system failure had been detected in its Westernlink interconnection.
Barclays increased by 4 percent. Although the UK bank reported lower than expected attributable profit, it showed signs of progress in its investment banking under pressure, which recorded a 25% increase in profit for the full year, its stock trading then saw its income grow.
Also in the UK, BAE Systems dropped 5.9%. Britain's largest defense company said the measures taken by the Germans to block exports to Saudi Arabia could undermine its key agreements with the Kingdom.
(Report by Danilo Masoni, edited by Helen Reid)
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