[MARKET ANALYSIS] European bourses broadly firmer as US-Iran strikes pause, AZN LN slumps following reports of a potential BMY merger

Newsquawk Staff · 3 Aug 2026, 09:12 UTC

European bourses start the week broadly higher across the board, helped by the announcement by US President Trump over the weekend that he cancelled strikes on Iran at the request of Tehran and other Middle East countries, subject to the immediate opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Energy benchmarks have dropped as a result, with the broader Energy sector lower by 1.4%. Elsewhere, EZ and UK Manufacturing PMIs were ticked lower. Within the broader EZ release, S&P stated that new work inflows remain worryingly weak and that the manufacturing economy is not quite as healthy as the headline figure (51.9) suggests.
Sectors highlight the positive bias. Autos is the clear outperformer, followed by Travel & Leisure and Consumer Products & Services. Outside of Energy, Food, Beverages & Tobacco and Health Care are the sector laggards.
On a quiet day of European earnings, there have been a lot of M&A stories. Starting with the biggest story of the day, the FT reported that AstraZeneca have been in talks with Bristol Myers Squibb on a potential merger, which would be the biggest pharma deal of all time. Shares of Astra have slumped by over 7% at one point, with BMY shares up over 8% pre-market. However, the merger will come under tough antitrust scrutiny, according to analysts at BMO, due to the significant business overlap between the Co.'s cancer drug portfolios.
In other M&A moves: Prysmian (-1.8%), acquires Atkore for USD 3.8bln; BMPS (+0.2%), considering the acquisition of Banco BPM according to the FT; Ageas (+2.4%), sells its minority stake in Eqita for c. USD 1.2bln; Holcim (-1.7%), sells its Philippines business for at least USD 807mln.
US equity futures are higher, given the broader risk-on tone. Outside of the AZN-BMY story, market-moving US equity stories have been light. ZDnet reported that NVIDIA(NVDA) GeForce RTX 50 series graphics card prices in South Korea are rising by up to 30% from August, driven by higher GDDR7 memory costs and TSMC (TSM) advanced process wafer price increases.

What our latest note said

US Market Open, 23 Oct, 10:15 UTC · what it led with

US President Trump says the US crushed Iran, and may want to do it a "little more".
Crude benchmarks firmer on ongoing tensions in the Middle East; recent bout of strength comes after the Houthis launched another missile towards Saudi interests.

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