The gains underscore how investors are leaning on company-specific factors to guide market sentiment amid an increasingly uncertain macroeconomic environment

International News via Reuters:

European equities ended higher on Tuesday, supported by a raft of positive corporate catalysts that eased investor concerns over recent trade tensions, while shares of Puma jumped after the sportswear maker sold a stake to China’s Anta Sports.

The gains underscore how investors are leaning on company-specific factors to guide market sentiment amid an increasingly uncertain macroeconomic environment.

The pan-European STOXX 600 benchmark was up 0.6% at 613.11 points and touched its highest in over one week.

Banks led sectoral gains with a 1.8% rise and hit their highest since May 2008, with HSBC <HSBA.L> up 2.8% as it briefly hit a $300  billion market value.

“The fundamentals for banks have really improved. We expect loan growth to pick up and we could see further positive earnings surprises from the sector this year,” said Ciaran Callaghan, head of European equity research at Amundi.

PUMA CLIMBS, LVMH RESULTS IN FOCUS

Puma’s shares rose 9% and hit their highest level since last March, following a deal by Anta Sports Products to buy a 29.06% stake in the German company for 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion). The deal is expected to help Puma increase its sales in the lucrative Chinese market.

“At this point in the cycle, we can expect dealmaking to pick up. Balance sheets are strong and management teams are looking to see where incremental growth can come from,” Callaghan added.

LVMH closed up 0.2%. Its U.S.-listed shares were last up 0.4% in choppy trading after the luxury giant said it sold more goods than analysts expected in the fourth quarter, boosting hopes of a luxury sector rebound even as trade tensions, a weaker dollar and high gold prices hit its margins.

Among others, Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche said a phase II clinical trial of its experimental obesity drug CT-388, a once-weekly injection, had delivered positive results. Shares struggled for direction for most of the session and were last flat.  

Separately, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India and the European Union have finalised a long-pending landmark trade deal, which also included India cutting steep tariffs on automakers.

However, auto stocks were down 0.8% as analysts were sceptical about the boost it could give to European brands that are likely to be faced with stiff competition from local carmakers.  

Investors are also concerned about the long-term implications of U.S. tariff threats for the global trade order, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would hike duties on South Korean autos and other imports, citing delays in implementing the pact signed last year.

Reporting by Niket Nishant, Avinash P and Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Shinjini Ganguli

Niscemi, a town of about 25,000 in south-central Sicily, sits on a plateau that authorities say is gradually collapsing toward the plain below

International News via Reuters:

Homes in the Sicilian town of Niscemi have been left teetering on the edge of a cliff after a landslide that was triggered by a storm, Italy’s civil protection chief said on Tuesday.

Niscemi, a town of about 25,000 in south-central Sicily, sits on a plateau that authorities say is gradually collapsing toward the plain below. More than 1,500 people have had to be evacuated.

Buildings were overhanging the edge after large sections of the slope gave way. A car was left with its front end poking into the chasm.

“Let’s be clear: there are homes on the edge of the landslide that are uninhabitable,” the civil protection head Fabio Ciciliano told reporters in Niscemi, saying residents from the affected areas would be permanently relocated.

“Once the water has drained away and the moving section has stopped or slowed, a more accurate assessment will be made … The landslide is still active,” he added.

On Monday, the Italian government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni declared a state of emergency for Sicily, Sardinia and Calabria, the three southern regions battered by the violent storm last week.

Extreme weather events have become more frequent in Italy in recent years. Floods have devastated cities across the country, killing dozens of people and amplifying risks of landslides and floods also in historically less exposed areas.

The administration set aside 100 million euros ($119 million) for the initial needs of the areas worst hit by the recent storm. But local authorities estimate damage at over 1 billion euros after powerful winds and waves pushed the sea inland overwhelming coastal defences, destroying homes and businesses.

In Niscemi, the sudden evacuations have fuelled anxiety and anger among residents, some of whom say earlier landslides went unaddressed.

“I have been told that I have to leave, even though I don’t have anything (collapse) in the house or underneath,” Francesco Zarba said.

“We had the first landslide 30 years ago, and no one ever did anything.”

($1 = 0.8382 euros)

Reporting by Danilo Arnone; additional reporting and Writing by Angelo Amante; Editing by Alison Williams

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the clock to 85 seconds before midnight, the theoretical point of annihilation

International News via Reuters:

Atomic scientists set their “Doomsday Clock” on Tuesday closer than ever to midnight, citing aggressive behavior by nuclear powers Russia, China and the United States, fraying nuclear arms control, conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and AI worries among factors driving risks for global disaster.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the clock to 85 seconds before midnight, the theoretical point of annihilation. That is four seconds closer than it was set last year. The Chicago-based nonprofit created the clock in 1947 during the Cold War tensions that followed World War Two to warn the public about how close humankind was to destroying the world.

The scientists voiced concern about threats of unregulated integration of artificial intelligence into military systems and its potential misuse in aiding the creation of biological threats, as well as AI’s role in spreading disinformation globally. They also noted continuing challenges posed by climate change.

“Of course, the Doomsday Clock is about global risks, and what we have seen is a global failure in leadership,” nuclear policy expert Alexandra Bell, the Bulletin’s president and CEO, told Reuters. “No matter the government, a shift towards neo-imperialism and an Orwellian approach to governance will only serve to push the clock toward midnight.”

It was the third time in the past four years that the scientists moved the clock closer to midnight.

“In terms of nuclear risks, nothing in 2025 trended in the right direction,” Bell said. “Longstanding diplomatic frameworks are under duress or collapsing, the threat of explosive nuclear testing has returned, proliferation concerns are growing, and there were three military operations taking place under the shadow of nuclear weapons and the associated escalatory threat. The risk of nuclear use is unsustainably and unacceptably high.”

Bell pointed to Russia’s continued war in Ukraine, the U.S. and Israeli bombing of Iran and border clashes between India and Pakistan. Bell also cited continuing tensions in Asia including on the Korean Peninsula and China’s threats toward Taiwan, as well as rising tensions in the Western Hemisphere since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office 12 months ago.

The last remaining nuclear arms pact between the United States and Russia, the New START treaty, expires on February 5. Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed in September that the two countries agree to observe for another year the limits set under the pact, which caps each side’s number of deployed nuclear warheads at 1,550. Trump has not formally responded. Western security analysts are divided about the wisdom of accepting Putin’s offer.

Trump in October ordered the U.S. military to restart the process for testing nuclear weapons after a halt of more than three decades. No nuclear power, other than North Korea most recently in 2017, has conducted explosive nuclear testing in more than a quarter century.

No country would benefit more from a full-scale return to such testing than China, given its continued push to expand its nuclear arsenal, according to Bell, a former senior official at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence and Stability.

‘AGGRESSIVE AND NATIONALISTIC’

Trump has upended the world order. He sent U.S. forces to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, threatened other Latin American countries, vowed to restore U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, talked about annexing Greenland and imperiled transatlantic security cooperation.

Russia launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and there is no end in sight. Among the weapons Russia has used is the nuclear-capable hypersonic Oreshnik missile. Russia released video in December of what it said was the deployment of the Oreshnik in Belarus, a move meant to boost the Russian ability to strike targets across Europe.

“Russia, China, the United States and other major countries have become increasingly aggressive and nationalistic,” Bell said.

Their “winner-takes-all great power competition” undermines the international cooperation needed to reduce risks of nuclear war, climate change, misuse of biotechnology, potential AI-related hazards and other apocalyptic dangers, Bell said.

Bell also cited Trump’s domestic actions against science, academia, the civil service and news organizations.

Maria Ressa, a 2021 Nobel Peace Prize recipient for her journalistic efforts exposing abuses of power in the Philippines including how social media platforms were used to spread disinformation, participated in the announcement. Ressa lamented the rise of technology that circulates lies more quickly than facts.

“We are living through an information Armageddon that’s brought about by the technology that rules our lives, from social media to generative AI. None of that tech is anchored in facts. Your chatbot is nothing but a probabilistic machine,” Ressa told an online press briefing.

The Bulletin was founded in 1945 by scientists including Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Daniel Wallis

Swedes rejected euro membership in a referendum in 2003, but with the economy ever more integrated into Europe’s, a recent study concluded that the potential benefits of the single currency now outweigh the risks

International News via Reuters:

Sweden’s Moderate Party will appoint a commission to weigh the pros and cons of joining the euro if it can remain in power after a parliamentary election in September, Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said on Tuesday.

Swedes rejected euro membership in a referendum in 2003, but with the economy ever more integrated into Europe’s, a recent study concluded that the potential benefits of the single currency now outweigh the risks.

“I think it’s obvious that we should examine this question and it’s a task … I will set to work on as soon as possible in the next mandate period,” Svantesson said during a parliamentary debate on euro membership.

The Moderates are the biggest party in the current minority coalition government.

Discussion about Swedish membership of the euro area has been reignited by a series of geopolitical and economic shifts in recent years – not least Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

While Sweden’s independent monetary policy is widely seen as having helped during the 2008-9 credit crunch, the euro crisis a few years later and during the pandemic, researchers also point to trade and security benefits if Sweden were to integrate further with the euro area.

Svantesson said membership would be many years away, even if a commission were to recommend adopting the euro.

The biggest obstacle is likely to be the Sweden Democrats, the largest party on the right. It supports the minority, coalition government but is dead set against euro membership.

“It (the euro) is a massively risky bet with the welfare of the Swedish people in the pot,” Sweden Democrat economic spokesperson Oscar Sjostedt said during the debate.

In 2003, 56% of Swedes voted against the euro with 42% in favour. In May, 49.5% were against and 32% backed the single currency with 18.5% undecided, according to a poll by the statistics agency.

Reporting by Simon Johnson; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne