The week opened with an unexpectedly buoyant tone across Europe, offering a contrast to the unease that closed out last Friday.
The Euro Stoxx 50 and Stoxx 600 both advanced around half a percent at the open, consolidating as the session unfolded. The DAX, CAC 40, and FTSE all followed suit, each edging higher as confidence crept back into the market. The shift in sentiment coincided with reports that President Trump had moved to cool trade tensions ahead of an anticipated meeting with President Xi.
Sector performance added a layer of interest, with luxury and defence names leading the recovery. Kering surged more than four percent after announcing the sale of its beauty division to L’Oréal for four billion euros, a move read by the market as strategic discipline rather than retreat.
Defence stocks continued to capture attention, a theme that has become steadily more structural across European portfolios. Rheinmetall gained over three percent and Leonardo close to three percent, both recovering from the previous session’s losses.
JPMorgan European Discovery Trust plc is an investment trust company. The Investment Trust JEDT objective is to achieve capital growth from a portfolio of quoted smaller companies in Europe, excluding the United Kingdom.
