[MARKET ANALYSIS] European bourses gain, with tech outperforming after positive Micron earnings and guidance

European bourses (STOXX 600 +0.5%) begin Thursday's trade with broad gains, with tech-heavy indices leading following positive Micron earnings (AEX +0.8%, DAX 40 +0.6%). As the Iran conflict fades, with energy prices now reversing the wartime gains, equities in Europe can begin to catch up to their peers in the US and Asia. Investors are also seeing Europe as a safer place to place money due to its lack of tech giants, protecting themselves from any AI-related selloff.
Sectors highlight the positive bias. Technology (+2.6%), unsurprisingly, is the clear outperformer. Utilities (+1.5%) and Financial Services (+0.8%) complete the top 3 sectors. To the downside is Media (-0.9%), Food, Beverages & Tobacco (-0.4%) and Chemicals (-0.3%).
H&M reported Q2 earnings this morning, in which sales, net income and operating profit missed estimates. In the earnings call, the CEO said that "sales are still not where we want them to be," while stating that consumer sentiment in Western Europe is very weak, with the UK also difficult. Shares have slumped by over 4% following this soft report.
Other key movers include: easyJet (+5.4%), after rejecting a fourth offer by Castlelake of GBP 6.50/shr; ITV (+2.2%), agrees to sell its M&E unit to Sky; Volkswagen (+1.6%), sells a majority stake in its marine engine unit to Bain Capital; 3i Group (+9.1%), sees LFL sales of 3.3% YTD.
US equity futures are gaining across the board, with clear outperformance in the NQ (+2.2%) following earnings by Micron and an update from Qualcomm. For Micron (+17.7% pre-market), its Q3 adj. EPS and revenue beat estimates while its Q4 guidance also beat consensus. In terms of commentary, they said that tight conditions are expected to persist beyond FY27, and it has no line of sight on when supply can catch up with demand. For Qualcomm (+12.5% pre-market), the Co. raised its FY29 non-handset revenue target to USD 40bln, while announcing a strategic relationship with Hugging Face to advance open, developer-driven AI from devices to cloud infrastructure.