LONDON — European stocks closed lower on Thursday, as traders focused on a raft of earnings reports from some of Europe's biggest companies.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 was provisionally down 0.2% at the end of the trading session.
SAP plummeted to the bottom of the pan-European index, tumbling 16% — its largest drop since 2020 — which also dragged Germany's DAX 1% lower. The German software manufacturer's fourth-quarter results showed its cloud revenue falling short of consensus estimates, with the company warning that cloud backlog growth would "slightly decelerate" in 2026.
Among sectors, basic resources companies led the way with a 3.2% gain, while European bank stocks were up 0.6%, and financial services added 1.4%, in a busy morning for earnings in the banking sector.
Shares in ABB popped 8% on Thursday after the Swiss multinational engineering group's fourth-quarter results revealed a 36% spike in orders, a total of $10.32 billion, which was a quarterly record for the Zurich-headquartered company.
Deutsche Bank's fourth-quarter earnings beat analysts' estimates on several metrics, with net profit attributable to shareholders coming in at 1.3Â billion euros ($1.56 billion) for the three-month period, outweighing analysts' estimated 1.12Â billion euros. The results came a day after German authorities raided the bank's offices in Berlin and Frankfurt as part of a money laundering probe. The bank's shares ended the session down 1.9%.
ING Groep also beat on profit, with the Dutch lender's net profits attributable to shareholders reaching 1.4 billion euros, up on analysts' 1.3 billion estimate. Its shares shed 1.1%. Swedbank was also down 0.3% and SEB tumbled 6.6% after missing its net profit targets in the fourth quarter.
Roche, the Swiss multinational healthcare company, was up almost 2.6%, partly reversing morning losses, while French pharmaceutical name Sanofi was last seen up 0.5%, after both companies delivered mixed earnings.
Other earnings reported Wizz Air, Nokia, and STMicroelectronics among others.
CNBC will be interviewing a variety of chief executives and financial officers on Thursday, the list includes: Deutsche Bank CFO James Von Moltke, ING CFO Tanate Phutrakul, DWS CFO Markus Kobler, Wizz Air CEO József Váradi, Roche CEO Thomas Schinecker, Swedbank CEO Jens Henriksson, SAP CFO Dominik Asam and SEB CEO Johan Torgeby.
U.S. markets are also focused on a slate of earnings, with Apple's fiscal first-quarter earnings report due later Thursday after the bell.Â
The S&P 500 fell on Thursday after Microsoft reported that cloud growth had slowed in the fiscal second quarter, while fellow "Magnificent Seven" member Tesla also recorded a fall in annual revenue.
Traders were also assessing the Federal Reserve's decision on Wednesday to keep its benchmark rate steady at a target range of 3.5% to 3.75%
In its post-meeting statement, the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee said that indicators are suggesting that "economic activity has been expanding at a solid pace" and that the unemployment rate "has shown some signs of stabilization."
Fed funds futures trading are still pricing in two quarter-percentage-point cuts by the end of 2026, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. Asia-Pacific markets mostly traded lower Thursday.
— CNBC's Pia Singh contributed to this market report.