Newsquawk Daily European Equity Opening News - 27th August 2026

ASIA APAC stocks were ultimately mixed, but with most indices in the green, after the flat performance stateside, where markets digested the firmer-than-expected headline PCE data and braced for NVIDIA earnings. The AI darling beat on top and bottom lines, although its shares were initially subdued, but were then boosted during the earnings call as the CFO flagged about a 70% revenue growth for the next fiscal year. ASX 200 underperformed amid another barrage of earnings releases and after recent inflation data, which prompted a call by NAB for the RBA to resume hiking rates at the next meeting in September. Nikkei 225 swung between gains and losses with the index fading the initial NVIDIA-spurred euphoria. KOSPI led the advances in the region as chipmakers cheered NVIDIA's strong results and outlook, while investors were also unfazed by the BoK's pre-emptive back-to-back rate hike. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were mixed amid several earnings releases and slower Industrial Profits, although the mainland was kept afloat after the PBoC conducted both 7-day and overnight reverse repos. Kioxia (285A JT) - Co. is to build a new memory manufacturing plant in Iwate Prefecture and the investment exceeds JPY 1tln, according to the Nikkei. (Nikkei) Qantas (QAN AT) - FY26 (AUD): Underlying Pretax Profit 2.1bln (exp. 2.1bln), Revenue 25.5bln (prev. 23.8bln Y/Y). Scraps its planned AUD 150mln share buyback programme. Expects Operating Margin on international flights as high as 12% by the end of June 2032. Announces that it will retire its 10 Airbus (AIR FP) A380s from 2028 and start phasing out its A330 fleet in 2026. Co. is in talks with Boeing (BA) and Airbus (AIR FP) to convert options for around 20 additional plans to firm orders from 2030. SoftBank (9984 JT) - Co. is reportedly in talks to buy a majority stake in 1X Technologies, an OpenAI-backed humanoid robot developer, valuing the startup at c. USD 6bln, the Information reports. (The Information) EUROPEAN CLOSES CLOSES: Euro Stoxx 50 +0.30% at 6,475, Dax 40 +0.19% at 26,316, FTSE 100 -0.07% at 10,878, CAC 40 +0.27% at 8,462, FTSE MIB +0.31% at 52,883, IBEX 35 +0.05% at 20,067, PSI +0.01% at 9,446, SMI +0.12% at 14,543, AEX -0.05% at 1,108 FTSE 100 Ex-Dividends - Glencore (GLEN LN), Autotrader (AUTO LN), Games Workshop Group (GAW LN), Croda (CRDA LN), Allianz Witan (ALW LN) and LondonMetric (LMP LN) will trade without entitlement to their latest dividend. (dividenddata) HSBC (HSBA LN) - Co. is reportedly planning to overhaul its Singapore unit by combining its major banking services together to streamline the structure, Bloomberg reports. (Bloomberg) Prudential (PRU LN) - H1 2026 (USD): Adj. Net Profit 1.52bln (prev. 1.37bln Y/Y), Operating Profit 1.81bln (prev. 1.64bln Y/Y), New Business profit 1.38bln (prev. 1.26bln Y/Y). Announces an additional USD 300mln of share buybacks and raised interim dividend 15% Y/Y to USD 0.0888/shr. (Prudential) UK Autos - Total vehicle production in July fell to 63,655 units, -11.6% Y/Y, due to weaker exports and earlier summer maintenance shutdowns at some plants weighing on output, SMMT reports. (SMMT) OTHER UK COMPANIES BROKER MOVES Admiral Group (ADM LN) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Berenberg Computacenter (CCC LN) upgraded to Buy from Add at Peel Hunt Convatec (CTEC LN) initiated with Buy at Kepler Cheuvreux DAX OTHER GERMAN COMPANIES Delivery Hero (DHER GY) - Q2 2026 (EUR): Revenue 4.02bln (exp. 3.84bln), GMV 13.21bln (exp. 12.77bln, prev. 12.24bln Y/Y). Raises FY26 guidance, now sees LFL revenue between 17-19% (prev. guided 14-16%) and GMV between 9-11% (prev. guided 8-10%). (Delivery Hero) BROKER MOVES Deutsche Telekom (DTE GY) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Kepler Cheuvreux CAC Eiffage (FGR FP) - H1 2026 (EUR): Revenue 12.2bln (exp. 12.11bln), Adj. Operating Income 1.02bln (exp. 1.04bln), Order Book 31.5bln (prev. 2.5bln Y/Y). Confirms FY26 outlook. (Eiffage) Pernod Ricard (RI FP) - FY 2026 (EUR): Revenue 9.40bln (exp. 9.44bln), Organic Sales -3.9% (exp. -3.7%), Recurring Operating Profit -5.2% (exp. -5.9%), Net Profit 1.24bln (prev. 1.67bln Y/Y). Sees 2027-29 net sales growth at the low end of its +3-6% range due to the softness in the US market. Sales by region: Americas -10%, USA -14%, China -19%, India +7%, Europe -3%. Underlying trends are expected to improve in China. (Pernod Ricard) Shares indicated lower by 3.4% on Tradegate. OTHER FRENCH COMPANIES BROKER MOVES PAN EUROPE Ageas (AGS BB) - H1 2026 (EUR): Inflows 12.08bln (prev. 10.45bln Y/Y), Net Income 846mln (prev. 677mln Y/Y). CEO: "Now expect more than EUR 1.4 billion of cash upstream from our insurance entities in 2026, 49% above last year and ahead of our previous guidance, supporting the payment of a EUR 1.50 gross interim dividend per share in December.” (Ageas) Stellantis (STLAM IM/STLAP FP) - Co. CEO says they are seeing improvements in H1 in all its key metrics and that they are on a trajectory for a gradual and progressive recovery. (Newswires) BROKER MOVES SMI Roche (ROP SW) - Co. receives FDA approval for companion diagnostic tests to identify patients with HER2-positive metastatic gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma eligible for ZIIHERA. (Roche) OTHER SWISS COMPANIES Accelleron Industries (ACLN SW) - H1 2026 (USD): Revenue 737.3mln (prev. 608mln Y/Y), Gross Profit 326.8mln (prev. 265.3mln Y/Y), Net Income 150.8mln (prev. 114.7mln Y/Y). Raises its FY26 organic revenue growth guidance to between 14-17% (prev. guided 9-14%). (Accelleron Industries) DKSH (DKSH SW) - Co. has signed an agreement to acquire P.R. Chemicals, a Thai distributor specialized in APIs. Transaction expected to close in Q4 2026. (DKSH) BROKER MOVES Givaudan (GIVN SW) downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley SCANDINAVIA Boliden (BOL SS) - Co. agrees to buy Votorantim's shares in Nexa Resources (NEXA), becoming an owner of 64.68% of the shares and votes in Nexa. (Boliden) Elekta (EKTAB SS) - Q1 2026/27 (SEK): Revenue 3.54bln (exp. 3.60bln), Adj. EBIT 395mln (prev. 235mln Y/Y). Reiterates its FY26/27 outlook. (Elekta) Novo Nordisk (NOVOB DC) - Co. says China's drug regulator has accepted its application to sell its oral Wegovy. (Newswires) BROKER MOVES Epiroc (EPIA SS) initiated with Hold at Berenberg FLSmidth (FLS DC) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Danske Bank Metso OYJ (METSO FH) initiated with Buy at Berenberg Sandvik (SAND SS) initiated with Hold at Berenberg Vestas Wind Systems (VWS DC) upgraded to Buy from Hold at Berenberg US CLOSES: SPX -0.02% at 7,676, NDX +0.05% at 29,225, DJI -0.21% at 53,469, RUT -0.14% at 3,006 SECTORS: Health -1.01%, Communication services -0.71%, Consumer discretionary -0.62%, Real estate -0.54%, Consumer staples -0.4%, Financials -0.11%, Materials flat, Energy +0.27%, Technology +0.37%, Utilities +0.47%, Industrials +1.07% Amazon (AMZN), Nvidia (NVDA) - Amazon Web Services and Nvidia expanded their strategic collaboration, planning to deploy 2mln additional Nvidia GPUs across AWS infrastructure in 2027-2028. The companies will also develop Vera CPU infrastructure, NVLink Fusion, AI factories including 100K GPUs for US government workloads, and deeper integrations across networking, open models, data processing and robotics. CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD) - Shares rose by almost 10% in afterhours trading, following a quarterly beat, while FY guidance was raised, and recurring revenue growth remained strong, supported by rising demand for AI-related cybersecurity. Q2 adj. EPS 0.31 (exp. 0.29), Q2 revenue USD 1.47bln (exp. 1.44bln). ARR +25% Y/Y to USD 5.84bln, with record Falcon Flex results and record net new ARR. CEO said Q2 was the best quarter in CrowdStrike’s history, and that rising AI adoption is expanding the need for cybersecurity. Sees Q3 adj. EPS 0.31 (exp. 0.31), sees Q3 revenue between USD 1.523-1.529bln (exp. 1.51bln). Raises FY27 revenue view to between USD 5.99-6.01bln (exp. 5.94bln; prev. saw 5.914-5.958bln), and sees FY27 adj. EPS between 1.25-1.26 (exp. 1.23). Nvidia (NVDA) - Nvidia shares initially slipped as much as 3% on its earnings release, after the company noted that its commitments have more than doubled due to memory procurement costs, and it saw Q3 margins falling below Q2 levels; however, shares ultimately finished extended US trading with gains of over 5%, after execs forecast stronger-than-expected revenue growth in FY28, supported by broadening AI demand, accelerating adoption of its next-generation processors and expanded cloud partnerships, despite the ongoing supply constraints. The Information citing sources also reported that Nvidia has agreed to acquire the open-source AI models and datasets platform Hugging Face for USD 12.9bln. It reported Q2 adj. EPS of 2.22 (exp. 2.09), Q2 revenue USD 96.2bln (exp. 92.3bln). Data centre revenue USD 89.0bln (exp. 85.86bln), hyperscale revenue USD 48.71bln (exp. 43.55bln), compute and networking revenue USD 88.30bln (exp. 84.69bln), edge computing revenue USD 7.20bln (exp. 6.61bln). Its commitments rose to USD 279bln in Q2 (from USD 119bln), primarily due to memory procurement. CEO Huang said AI has reached an inflection point, demand is accelerating and Vera Rubin is now in full production. Nvidia returned approximately USD 26.0bln to shareholders through buybacks and dividends, and had approximately USD 99.0bln remaining under its repurchase authorisation. Sees Q3 revenue between USD 105.84-110.16bln (exp. 104.9bln), sees Q3 adj. gross margin between 73.5-74.5% (vs 75% in Q2), Q3 adj. operating expenses about USD 9.0bln (exp. 8.97bln), with no China data centre compute revenue assumed in the outlook. Nvidia also expects FY28 revenue growth of about 70%; it noted that memory shortages remain a constraint on growth. Salesforce (CRM) - Salesforce rose over 14% in extended US trading after quarterly earnings beat expectations, guidance was stronger than forecast, and AI-related growth accelerated, helped by a large gain on its Anthropic investment. It reported Q2 adj. EPS 5.90 (exp. 3.27), Q2 revenue USD 11.3bln (exp. 11.3bln). Q2 remaining performance obligations USD 33.5bln (exp. 33.22bln), Agentforce ARR +240% Y/Y to more than USD 1.5bln and free cash flow +81% Y/Y to USD 1.10bln (exp. 643.2mln). Results included a USD 2.6bln gain on strategic investments; it expanded its Anthropic partnership, announcing 'Claudeforce', which integrates Claude across Salesforce, Agentforce and Slack, and it said that Q2 results included a USD 2.6bln gain on strategic investments, primarily from its Anthropic stake. CEO Benioff said generative AI has not undermined Salesforce’s software model, while the company continues expanding Agentforce and its Anthropic partnership. Final settlement of the USD 25bln accelerated share repurchase is expected in October 2026. Sees Q3 adj. EPS between 3.42-3.44 (exp. 3.37) and sees Q3 revenue between USD 11.42-11.50bln (exp. 11.4bln). Raises FY27 adj. EPS to between 16.67-16.71 (exp. 14.16), and raises FY27 revenue to between USD 46.1-46.4bln (exp. 46.1bln; prev. saw 45.9-46.2bln). Synopsys (SNPS) - Synopsys edged lower despite beating quarterly earnings and revenue expectations and raising its FY outlook. Q3 adj. EPS 3.91 (exp. 3.67), Q3 revenue USD 2.48bln (exp. 2.44bln). Design IP revenue returned to Y/Y growth and is expected to increase sequentially again in Q4. CFO said growth is being driven by strong AI-related design demand as customers build increasingly complex chips on shorter development cycles. Raises FY26 adj. EPS view to between 15.04-15.10 (exp. 14.76; prev. saw 14.72-14.80), and raises FY26 revenue view to between USD 9.69-9.74bln (exp. 9.68bln; prev. saw 9.63-9.71bln).