Newsquawk Daily European Equity Opening News - 2nd July 2026

ASIA

APAC stocks were mixed but with the major indices predominantly in the red following the tech-related losses on Wall St, while participants also brace for the incoming Non-Farm Payrolls report in a holiday-shortened trading week stateside. ASX 200 was rangebound as strength in the top-weighted financial sector was offset by losses in the utilities, tech, energy and consumer sectors, while sentiment was also not helped by weak Australian trade data. Nikkei 225 retreated at the open amid tech selling and recent upside in yields, although the index then staged a partial rebound, before selling resumed later in the session. KOSPI slumped amid the pressure in memory chip stocks, and triggered a sidecar in early trade. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp traded mixed with the mainland conforming to the broad risk-off mood, while the Hong Kong benchmark bucked the trend amid strength in local tech, biopharmaceutical and auto names on return from the holiday closure.

SK Hynix (000660 KS) - Co. announced it plans to invest KRW 80tln to build a new factory for NAND memory chip production by 2029 to address a AI-driven shortage. (SK Hynix)

EUROPEAN CLOSES

CLOSES: Euro Stoxx 50 -0.70% at 6,284, Dax 40 +0.29% at 25,069, FTSE 100 -0.18% at 10,478, CAC 40 -0.79% at 8,337, FTSE MIB -0.15% at 51,605, IBEX 35 -0.34% at 19,407, PSI -0.46% at 9,090, SMI -0.56% at 14,114, AEX -0.65% at 1,073

FTSE 100

AstraZeneca (AZN LN) - AstraZeneca and Abbisko Therapeutics entered a strategic collaboration to jointly advance a Phase I/II open-label study of Abbisko’s oral PD-L1 inhibitor lumipodlin with AstraZeneca’s EGFR-TKI TAGRISSO for EGFR-mutated and PD-L1 positive locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC. The IND was cleared by China’s National Medical Products Administration on 20th May 2026. (AstraZeneca)

Ex-Dividends - Next (NXT LN), JD Sports (JD/ LN) and Games Workshop (GAW LN) will trade without entitlement to their latest dividend. (dividenddata)

Shell (SHEL LN) - Co.'s Executive VP of energy trading Wells is reportedly set to retire, with Bob Kijkuit to replace Wells, Bloomberg reports. (Bloomberg)

OTHER UK COMPANIES

BROKER MOVES

DAX

Bayer (BAYN GY) - Co. consolidated its US glyphosate business into Ruveon as part of its Crop Science division's Five-Year Framework strategy. Ruveon will be solely responsible for US glyphosate pricing, go-to-market strategies, production and logistics, and is expected to be a more nimble player in its commodity-based market. (Bayer)

KNDS - Co. announced that it will delay its IPO until there is a return to "more favourable market conditions." (KNDS)

OTHER GERMAN COMPANIES

Nordex (NDX1 GY) - Co. receives an order from ENOVA and BMR totalling over 197MW. (Nordex)

BROKER MOVES

CAC

Bouygues (EN FP) - Co. acquires Vanony Construction to strengthen its position in the US market; no terms disclosed. (Bouygues)

OTHER FRENCH COMPANIES

Abivax (ABVX FP) - Co. raises USD 800mln in an expanded share sale. (Abivax)

Sodexo (SW FP) - Q3 2026 (EUR): Revenue 6.17bln (prev. 6.12bln Y/Y). Raised its FY26 organic revenue growth to between 1.2-1.5% (prev. guided 0.5-1%) and guides underlying operating profit margin between 3.2-3.4% (prev. guided "lower" Y/Y). Says that the negative currency impact (-2.5%) was driven by the depreciation of the USD and that they are moving urgency on the action plan to return to growth. (Sodexo)

Ubisoft (UBI FP) - Co. has hired Amazon Games VP Hartmann to lead its Creative House 2. (Ubisoft)

BROKER MOVES

PAN EUROPE

EU-China trade - Some EU member states are reportedly concerned that the EU does not have the political will to institute meaningful change or face China if diplomacy fails, Bloomberg reports. (Bloomberg)

EU Chips - A report by the Institute for Security Studies and think-tank Institut Montaigne highlighted that Chinese export controls, dependence on the US for tech and the structural weakness of Europe's domestic chip industry means it is facing a worrying future. (Reuters)

EU Tech - The EU is to reportedly propose that tech firms can use cheaper offsets to counter the climate impact of gas-powered data centres, the FT reports, in an attempt to become more competitive with the US. (FT)

Italy car registrations - New car registrations in Italy rose to 146,423, +10.6% Y/Y, in June.

Stellantis (STLAM IM/STLAP FP) - Co. reports total sales for June that rose 10% Y/Y, with total H1 sales of 634,187 (+5% compared to H1'25). (Stellantis)

BROKER MOVES

Repsol (REP SM) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Santander

SMI

Novartis (NOVN SW) - Co. announces that the EU has approved Itvisma for the treatment of children two years and older, teens and adults living with 5q spinal muscular atrophy with a bi-allelic mutation in the SMN1 gene. (Novartis)

Roche (ROP SW) - Co. says that its experimental drug, divarasib, met its primary and key secondary objectives in a head-to-head clinical trial that beat existing therapies. (Roche)

UBS (UBSG SW) - Co. is to trial US banking services in a drive for wealthy US clients, according to FT. (FT)

OTHER SWISS COMPANIES

BROKER MOVES

SCANDINAVIA

Skanska (SKAB SS) - Co. has signed a contract with Amtrak for the Dock Bridge rehabilitation project in Newark, New Jersey, for about SEK 810mln. (Skanska)

BROKER MOVES

Pandora (PNDORA DC) upgraded to Neutral from Sell at UBS

TGS (TGS NO) downgraded to Hold from buy at SEB

US

CLOSES: SPX -0.22% at 7,483, NDX -1.54% at 29,809, DJI -0.03% at 52,310, RUT -0.39% at 3,013

SECTORS: Technology -1.84%, Utilities -1.30%, Industrials -1.06%, Energy -0.56%, Consumer Staples -0.33%, Real Estate +0.28%, Materials +0.33%, Health +0.52%, Consumer Discretionary +0.82%, Financials +2.13%, Communication Services +2.62%.

AI Regulation - The US government is in advanced talks with AI companies including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google to create voluntary standards for frontier model releases, to be announced as soon as next week, according to the FT.

Apple (AAPL) - Apple is reportedly in negotiations to purchase memory chips from Pentagon-blacklisted Chinese firms ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies for use in devices sold in China, according to Bloomberg. CEO Tim Cook has appealed to Treasury Secretary Bessent to soften potential political fallout. Apple currently sources memory from Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, and last week raised prices across Macs, iPads and other devices citing an unprecedented memory shortage.

Apple (AAPL) - Apple has told suppliers to prepare to produce about 10mln foldable iPhones this year (up from a previous forecast of 7-8mln units), and has booked components for 80mln smartphones across new H2 2026 models, including the iPhone Pro, iPhone Pro Max and first foldable iPhone, according to Nikkei. At least two further models are planned for H1 2027, with 2026 total production set to exceed 220mln units.

Nvidia (NVDA) - Nvidia introduced a revenue-sharing and credit-support business model allowing AI cloud partners to procure Nvidia infrastructure for AI-native and enterprise customers; Nvidia would earn standard product revenue plus a share of the cloud revenue. Sharon AI and Firmus are among the first partners, with Sharon AI deploying up to 40,000 Grace Blackwell GB300 GPUs and Firmus building a campus in Batam, Indonesia, scaling to 360 megawatts and up to 170,000 Nvidia GPUs.

OpenAI - OpenAI reportedly proposed handing the US government a 5% stake in the company, worth roughly USD 42.6bln based on its USD 852bln March valuation, the FT reports. CEO Sam Altman argued a government holding is the best way to share AI's upside, with the arrangement potentially extended to other US AI companies.