By Twesha Dikshit
(Reuters) -European shares were little changed on Monday, with investors focussing on Ukraine and European leaders’ meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, following a Russia-U.S. summit that ended without an immediate agreement.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index was flat, as of 0840 GMT, after logging a second straight weekly gain on Friday. Most regional bourses were also mixed with Germany’s blue-chip DAX dropping 0.4%.
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy will meet Trump along with other European leaders in a bid to draw out a peace deal that will not favour Moscow.
Trump met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday and agreed that a peace deal should be worked upon without a ceasefire.
Germany’s foreign minister urged for more pressure on Russia and aid for Ukraine ahead of the meet.
“The main thing for the European stock market would be any peace agreement and the exact shape doesn’t matter so much,” said Robert Schramm-Fuchs, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson.
“It’s more about ending the war which will bring some lost valuation back to the European market because we look at how Europe diverged from the U.S. over the course of 2022 as the war broke out and intensified.”
Investors also awaited a potentially key week for U.S. interest rate policy and will look for clues at the Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole symposium later this week, where Chair Jerome Powell and other policymakers will talk economic outlook and the central bank’s policy framework.
Vestas shares jumped 16.4% and were the top gainer on the STOXX 600 after the U.S. Treasury released guidelines for the qualification of wind and solar subsidies offering clarity for projects through 2030.
Other renewables were also boosted, with EDP Renonvaveis surging 6.7%, while Orsted and RWE both gained more than 2% each.
Novo Nordisk jumped 4.5% after the drugmaker’ s weight-loss drug Wegovy received an accelerated approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat a serious liver condition.
Defence stocks also rose, with Germany’s Rheinmetall and Renk gaining 2.9% and 3.5%, respectively, while UK’s Babcock was up 3.7%. RBC initiated the British engineering company at “Outperform”. Conversely, Commerzbank fell 3.7%, after Deutsche Bank cut the stock’s rating to “Hold” from “Buy”. Banks in the euro zone were under pressure and fell 1.5% after surging almost 60% this year.
(Reporting by Twesha Dikshit and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
