Intel gave a tepid outlook for sales in its current quarter, signaling further challenges for the chip maker’s self-driving and programmable-chip businesses amid signs that the PC market is starting to recover. The company forecast roughly $12.7 billion of sales for the first quarter, higher than the same period last year but lower than Wall Street expected in a survey of analysts by FactSet. The company’s shares fell more than 8% in after-hours trading. Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger said factors including a rocky market for a programmable-chip unit and weaker-than-anticipated sales for Mobileye Global, its autonomous-driving business, hit the outlook. He characterized those headwinds as “temporary,” and said he expected sales to grow every quarter this year, both sequentially and year-over-year. That growth is expected to come partly from a long-awaited rebound in the market for personal computers where Intel’s chips are ubiquitous.

The Swiss market ended slightly up on Thursday after spending much of the day's session in negative territory. Investors tracked the European Central Bank's monetary policy announcement to assess the likely timing of interest rate cuts. The benchmark SMI ended the day's session with a small gain of 12.20 points or 0.11% at 11,209.02, the day's high. The index touched a low of 11,138.04 around mid afternoon. Givaudan, up 8.32%, was the biggest gainer in the SMI index. The stock gained on announcement the company has proposed a dividend of 68 francs per share for 2023, a rise of 1.5%. The group posted an attributable income of 893 million francs for 2023, up from 856 million francs a year ago. Kuehne & Nagel and Partners Group gained 1.52% and 1.2%, respectively. Sika, Nestle, ABB and Sonova advanced 0.8 to 1%. Geberit, UBS Group and Holcim posted modest gains. Lonza Group ended nearly 3% down. Roche Holding and Logitech International drifted down 1.28% and 1.22%, respectively. Novartis settled lower by about 0.8%. Among the stocks in the Mid Price Index, Avolta climbed 2.7%, while Schindler Holding, Flughafen Zurich and Schindler Ps gained 1.7%, 1.55% and 1.49%, respectively. Meyer Burger Tech tanked 11.6%. Sandoz ended down 2.3%, while Swatch Group and Straumann Holding both shed about 1.05%.

The major European markets ended slightly higher on Thursday with investors digesting the latest batch of U.S. and European economic data, and the European Central Bank's monetary policy announcement. Most of the major markets in the region spent much of the day's session in negative territory and found some support in the final hour to settle on a slightly positive note. The ECB held its key interest rates steady for a third policy session in a row and stuck to its stance that policy would remain restrictive for as long as needed, and did not give any signal regarding the possibility of a rate cut in the near future. The pan European Stoxx 600 ended 0.3% up. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 edged up 0.03%. Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 advanced 0.1% and 0.11%, respectively. Switzerland's SMI edged up 0.11%. Other markets in Europe closed on a mixed note. Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden and Turkiye closed higher. Greece, Iceland, Poland, Portugal, Russia and Spain ended weak, while Belgium and Norway closed flat. In the UK market, ICP rallied more than 7.5% and Ashtead gained about 7.2%. Smurfit Kappa Group climbed 4.5%. Marks & Spencer, Mondi, Howden Joinery, RightMove, WPP, DS Smith, Associated British Foods, Flutter Entertainment, The Sage Group and Compass gained 1.2 to 2%. St. James's Place ended 4.7% down, and Hikma Pharmaceuticals drifted down 3.7%. Standard Chartered, RS Group and Anglo American Plc lost 2.8 to 3.1%. Lloyds Banking Group, Fresnillo, Melrose Industries, Entain, GSK, Kingfisher, Ocado Group and Barclays Group ended down 1.2 to 2%. In the German market, Adidas surged 5.3%.

Stocks gave back ground after an early advance but rebounded going into the close to end Thursday's trading mostly higher. The Dow and the S&P 500 once again reached new record closing highs, while the Nasdaq edged up its best closing level in well over two years. The Dow ended the session just off its best levels of the day, climbing 242.74 points or 0.6 percent to 38,049.13. The S&P also rose 25.61 points or 0.5 percent to 4,894.16, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq crept up 28.58 points 0.2 percent to 15,510.50. The early strength on Wall Street came following the release of a Commerce Department report showing stronger than expected U.S. economic growth as well as a slowdown in the pace of consumer price growth in the fourth quarter of 2023. The report said gross domestic product shot up by 3.3 percent in the fourth quarter after surging by 4.9 percent in the third quarter, while economists had expected GDP to jump by 2.0 percent. Among individual stocks, tech giant IBM Corp. (IBM) posted a standout gain, soaring by 9.5 percent after reporting fourth quarter results that exceeded analyst estimates on both the top and bottom lines. Airline stocks moved sharply higher over the course of the session, with the NYSE Arca Airline Index soaring by 3.4 percent. Telecom stocks also saw considerable strength after falling sharply on Wednesday, driving the NYSE Arca North American Telecom Index up by 1.8 percent. Interest-rate sensitive housing and utilities also moved notably higher, while strength was also visible among gold, natural gas and commercial real estate stocks.

Prices on the East Asian stock markets were predominantly down on Friday. Fears of interest rate hikes are once again weighing on the Japanese stock exchange, while doubts about a recovery of the domestic economy are depressing share prices on the Chinese trading centres. The Australian stock exchange is closed on Friday for a public holiday.

In the U.S. bond market, treasuries climbed firmly into positive territory in reaction to the U.S. economic data. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, slid 4.6 basis points to 4.132 percent.

Citi raises Lanxess to EUR 25.50 (24) – Neutral
BoA downgrades Boeing to Neutral and lowers the target to USD 225
BoA raises the Easyjet target to 690 (640) p – Buy

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