Newsquawk Daily European Equity Opening News - 24th August 2026

ASIA APAC stocks traded mixed, albeit with a mostly negative bias amid a US-Canada trade war and following quiet geopolitical headlines over the weekend, while participants await this week's key events, including the US announcing the 'toughest sanctions in history' against Iran later, in what is described as economic D-Day, NVIDIA earnings due mid-week and the Jackson Hole Symposium on August 27th-29th. ASX 200 was higher amid strength in the mining, materials, resources and tech sectors, while participants digested another deluge of earnings releases from Australian companies. Nikkei 225 was choppy and traded on both sides of the 66,000 level amid strength in the heavy industries, while tech-related stocks lagged with Kioxia and SoftBank among the worst hit. KOSPI underperformed amid weakness in its tech giants, with Samsung Electronics and affiliates suffering heavy losses despite the recent announcement of its largest-ever shareholder return plan. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were pressured amid selling in tech, with Alibaba suffering heavily after it announced a USD 10bln Hong Kong share sale, while 'Big Short's' Michael Burry said he sold his Alibaba shares to build a large position in JD.com (9618 HK) and suggested Alibaba was overvalued. Shein IPO - Shein offers HK IPO shares at HKD 47.60-49.50/shr with total number of shares at 280mln Class B shares, while total number of shares under global offering is 252mln Class B shares. (Newswires) EUROPEAN CLOSES CLOSES: Euro Stoxx 50 +0.68% at 6,466, Dax 40 +0.56% at 26,129, FTSE 100 +0.64% at 10,817, CAC 40 +0.37% at 8,484, FTSE MIB +0.00% at 52,668, IBEX 35 +0.76% at 19,962, PSI +0.78% at 9,355, SMI +0.73% at 14,473, AEX +0.29% at 1,106 FTSE 100 Shell (SHEL LN) – Co. has drawn interest from potential bidders including ExxonMobil (XOM) and LyondellBasell (LYB) for its USD 8bln US chemicals assets sale, according to the FT citing sources. The piece highlights that the USD 8bln valuation would be a "steep discount" to the amount that Shell had invested in its US chemicals facilities. (FT) OTHER UK COMPANIES BROKER MOVES Big Yellow Group (BYG LN) downgraded to Underweight from Overweight at Barclays Segro (SGRO LN) upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Barclays Diploma (DPLM LN) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan Unite (UTG LN) downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays DAX OTHER GERMAN COMPANIES BROKER MOVES CAC BNP Paribas (BNP FP) – Releases a statement in relation to the Sudan litigation: "BNP Paribas is confident that the trial court fundamentally misconstrued Swiss law, committed numerous legal errors and sidelined highly relevant evidence showing that the financial transactions at issue were authorized under Swiss and European law". (BNP Paribas) OTHER FRENCH COMPANIES BROKER MOVES PAN EUROPE Santander (SAN SM) - Santander share capital will reduce by approximately 3.08% following completion of buy-back programme. (Santander) BROKER MOVES SMI Partners Group (PGHN SW) – The Co’s private credit strategy is to exit Gong cha. (Partners) Sonova (SOON SW) – Co. strengthens innovation leadership with Phonak EON portfolio and third-generation proprietary real-time AI. (Sonova) OTHER SWISS COMPANIES BROKER MOVES Swiss Prime Stores (SPSN SW) downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays SCANDINAVIA Skanska (SKAB SS) – Co. was awarded a SEK 930mln contract to build a data center in Prague. (Skanska) BROKER MOVES Sandvik (SAND SS) upgraded to Buy from Hold by SEB US CLOSES: SPX +0.43% at 7,674, NDX +0.33% at 29,309, DJI +0.98% at 53,282, RUT +0.85% at 3,018 SECTORS: Utilities -2.31%, Energy -0.23%, Technology flat, Real estate flat, Industrials +0.29%, Consumer staples +0.58%, Communication services +0.87%, Consumer discretionary +0.91%, Financials +1.01%, Health +1.31%, Materials +2.2% Amazon (AMZN) - Amazon’s Zoox has begun charging for driverless robotaxi rides in Las Vegas and operating in San Francisco, WSJ reports. Regulators have allowed up to 5K vehicles over two years, subject to weather and speed restrictions. Zoox has about 100 vehicles, with plans to expand testing and service to Austin and Miami. (Amazon) Alibaba (BABA) - Alibaba priced a HKD 80bln placement of 710mln new shares at HKD 112.70 each. The transaction is expected to close on 26th August, subject to customary conditions. Alibaba plans to use the proceeds to expand its full-stack AI capabilities and infrastructure. (Alibaba) ExxonMobil (XOM) - ExxonMobil temporarily suspended operations at Guyana’s Liza Unity FPSO (produces around 250K BPD from the Stabroek Block) after a small laundry-room fire, Bloomberg reports. The fire was quickly extinguished, all personnel were safe and crude offloading was affected. Operations will resume after safety checks. Nvidia (NVDA) - Nvidia customers have been notified of price increases of more than 15% on AI servers, effective on systems shipped early next year, covering flagship Vera Rubin and Grace Blackwell chip configurations, Bloomberg reports. The hikes reflect soaring memory chip costs from Samsung (SSNLF), SK Hynix (SKHY) and Micron (MU), which hold near-total control of DRAM production amid surging demand. Server manufacturers have begun passing the increases on to major data centre operators including Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG) and Oracle (ORCL). Separately, Nvidia plans to use its USD 6bln Poolside licensing deal to build a powerful open-weight AI model intended to compete with Chinese systems such as DeepSeek and Kimi K3, WSJ reports. Nvidia will also invest USD 1bln in Poolside, while more than 100 employees will join its Nemotron project. (Bloomberg) US-Canada - Trade discussions between the US and Canada collapsed on Friday; Canadian PM Carney vowed to retaliate by matching tariffs dollar-for-dollar on US goods from September 8th.