Facebook parent Meta Platforms posted its fourth consecutive quarter of revenue growth despite regulatory challenges and child-safety concerns. The company’s sales increased to $40.11 billion in the three months through December, up 25% compared with the year-earlier period. That marks Meta’s largest year-over-year quarterly growth in more than two years. In the third quarter of 2023, Meta reported record revenue of $34.15 billion, up 23%. Meta’s encouraging performance has been fueled by breakthroughs in artificial-intelligence technology that has boosted its ad-targeting capabilities. Those advancements in AI have helped Meta overcome challenges posed by privacy changes implemented by Apple in 2021 that erased $10 billion of revenue for the social-media company in 2022. Meta announced that it would pay a cash dividend for the first time in company history. The dividend will be paid at 50 cents a share. The stock jumped 14% in after-hours trading. The company’s Reality Labs hardware division reported revenue of $1.07 billion, which was up more than 47% compared with a year ago. Despite the strong growth, the unit remains a money loser. Reality Labs posted an operating loss of $4.65 billion for the period.

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The Swiss market ended notably lower for a second straight session, as stocks reeled under sustained selling pressure on Thursday. Data showing manufacturing activity in Switzerland contracted for the thirteenth consecutive month weighed on sentiment. The benchmark SMI, which snapped a five-day winning streak on Wednesday, recorded a loss of 119.47 points or 1.05% today, as it settled at 11,213.91. The index touched a low of 11,194.31 in the session. Roche Holding ended down 5.5% after forecasting a sluggish recovery in sales and earnings this year. The company posted a profit of 11.50 billion francs for the year ended Dec. 31, 2023, with sales of 58.72 billion francs. Analysts expected a net income of 14.86 billion francs. UBS Group lost about 3.3%. Holcim, Zurich Insurance Group, Swisscom and Swiss Re ended lower by 1.3 to 1.6%. Swiss Life Holding and Kuehne & Nagel both ended lower by about 1.2%. Alcon, Logitech International and Richemont ended modestly lower. ABB climbed about 1.7% and Novartis advanced 1.3%. Lonza Group and Sonova gained 0.68% and 0.5%, respectively. In the Mid Price Index, Sandoz dropped about 4%. SIG Combibloc ended lower by 1.21%, while Avolta, ams OSRAM AG, Swatch Group and Flughafen Zurich all declined nearly 1%.

Major European markets closed lower on Thursday amid uncertainty about the near term outlook for interest rates, and a mixed batch of regional and U.S. economic data. Investors also tracked quarterly earnings updates for direction. The Bank of England opened the door for interest rate cuts this year after holding the policy rate steady for four straight meetings, and lowered its inflation projections. The pan European Stoxx 600 ended down 0.37%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 closed lower by 0.11%, Germany's DAX drifted down 0.26% and France's CAC 40 lost 0.89%, while Switzerland's SMI declined 1.05%. Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Portugal and Spain ended higher. Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Sweden and Turkiye closed higher, while Iceland and Norway ended flat. The BoE's Monetary Policy Committee, led by Governor Andrew Bailey, decided in a 6-3 split vote to keep the bank rate at a 15-year high of 5.25%, as expected. The BoE dropped the wordings related to further tightening in the latest policy statement. The risks to inflation were more balanced, the bank noted. Although services price inflation and wage growth dropped somewhat more than expected, key indicators of inflation persistence remained elevated, the majority in MPC said. Inflation is forecast to fall temporarily to the 2% target in the second quarter before rising again in the third quarter and the fourth quarter. Price growth is projected to be 2.3% in two years' time and 1.9% in three years.

Following the sell-off seen in the previous session, stocks showed a strong move back to the upside during trading on Thursday. The major averages fluctuated early in the session but climbed firmly into positive territory as the day progressed. The major averages finished the session near their best levels of the day. The Dow jumped 369.54 points or 1.0 percent to 38,519.84, the Nasdaq surged 197.63 points or 1.3 percent to 15,361.64 and the S&P 500 shot up 60.54 points or 1.3 percent to 4,906.19. In U.S. economic news, the Labor Department released a report showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly saw a modest increase in the week ended January 27th. The Labor Department said initial jobless claims rose to 224,000, an increase of 9,000 from the previous week's revised level of 215,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to edge down to 212,000 from the 214,000 originally reported for the previous week. Retail, airline and housing stocks also showed strong moves to the upside, while banking stocks saw significant weakness, dragging the KBW Bank Index down by 1.7 percent. Standex International Corp (SXI) reported earnings for second quarter that decreased from the same period last year but beat the Street estimates. The company's earnings totaled $18.87 million, or $1.59 per share. This compares with $20.04 million, or $1.69 per share, in last year's second quarter.

In the wake of firmer prices on Wall Street the previous day, the stock markets in East Asia and Australia mostly rose on Friday. In Tokyo, the Nikkei index rose by 0.6 per cent to 36,225 points. The yen is likely to act as a slight brake, having gained somewhat against the dollar at the same time the previous day. The dollar is weakening against the backdrop of further falls in US market interest rates.

In the U.S. bond market, treasuries moved sharply higher, extending a recent upward trend. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, tumbled 10.4 basis points to a one-month closing low of 3.863 percent.

UBS raises the Philips target to EUR 16 (15.40) – Sell

JP Morgan lowers the Delivery Hero target to EUR 39 (43) – Overweight

BoA raises the Santander target to EUR 5 (4.80) – Buy

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