European stocks close higher; UK retail sales outperform; NatWest up 7% after profit beat

European stocks provisionally closed 0.6% higher on Friday, with major bourses and most sectors in positive territory.

Mining stocks led the gains, up over 2.5% for the session, while utilities slipped 0.5%.

— Sam Meredith

Shares of British bank NatWest rose over 7% on Friday afternoon after it reported stronger-than-anticipated full-year profit and confirmed Paul Thwaite as its permanent chief executive.

The London-listed stock soared toward the top of the European benchmark on the news.

Meanwhile, shares of Temenos slipped over 6%, extending sharp losses from the previous session.

The Swiss software company on Thursday released a statement saying its board of directors “fundamentally refutes” a report by short-seller Hindenburg Research. The report had alleged “hallmarks of manipulated earnings and major accounting irregularities” at Temenos.

— Sam Meredith

Swiss Re CEO Christian Mumenthaler discusses the company’s earnings, how it navigated a string of difficulties in the past few years and its outlook for 2024.

Umicore CEO Mathias Miedreich breaks down the firm’s earnings, laying out how the numbers will play into a strategy for greater cash generation.

Shares of NatWest were 5% higher in mid-morning deals in London, after the British bank posted a pre-tax profit of 6.2 billion pounds ($7.81 billion) for 2023, better than analysts had forecast, according to Reuters.

The bank also confirmed interim CEO Paul Thwaite would take on the role permanently, after his predecessor Alison Rose resigned in a scandal over account privacy.

Shareholders are set to receive a final dividend of 11.5 pence per share, as the bank also conducts a share buyback of 300 million pounds. Investors are also assessing its upcoming planned retail sale of government-owned NatWest stock.

Read more here.

— Jenni Reid

European stocks opened higher Friday, rounding off a strong week that has seen investors monitor a slew of earnings and data.

France’s CAC 40 index was 0.6% higher after marking an intraday record high, while London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.7% after British retail sales beat forecasts. Germany’s DAX was up 0.54%.

— Jenni Reid

The S&P 500 closed above 5,000 for the first time last week. But as the index rose, so did concerns about its valuation.

However, investors need not fear as the rally could still have plenty of room to run, according to Capital Economics.

The research firm’s chief market economist revealed their price target in a note to clients entitled: “bubble may be far from bursting.”

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Ganesh Rao

Shares of Coinbase Global were up more than 14% in after hours trading after the crypto exchange posted its first quarterly profit since 2021 on Thursday, helped by increased trading volumes.

Alesia Haas, Coinbase’s CFO, attributed the strong earnings to the recent fervor in the crypto market following the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. last month.

“We’re the proud custodian now of 90% of total ETF crypto, and that’s really benefited our platform directly, but what I would say is that we’ve seen growth at large across the space with this [bitcoin ETF] excitement,” she told CNBC’s “Closing Bell Overtime.”

The price of bitcoin increased more than 50% in the final three months of last year, while Coinbase’s transaction volume jumped 64% to $529.3 million over the same period.

Coinbase’s momentum “continues to be strong” heading into the first quarter, Owen Lau, executive director and senior analyst at Oppenheimer, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Friday.

“We still have a lot of uncertainty from the regulatory standpoint, but we are moving in the right direction,” he said. “We predict pretty sustainable profitability into the next few quarters.”

— Dylan Butts

Japan’s finance minister said Friday that he was monitoring yen’s moves “with a strong sense of urgency,” according to a Reuters report, adding that a weak yen has its merits as well as demerits.

“Currency rates are set by markets reflecting fundamentals. Rapid moves are undesirable and stable moves are desirable,” Suzuki reportedly told a lower house session of parliament.

The yen weakened on Friday and was trading at the psychologically key 150 per dollar level, a day after the country entered a technical recession.

— Lee Ying Shan, Reuters

Beijing needs to show “more clear signals” for aggressive policy easing to backstop the growth downturn, China markets expert Yan Wang said Friday.

“Other than that, I doubt the market can rally on a sustainable basis,” Wang, chief emerging markets and China strategist at global investment research and strategy firm Alpine Macro, said on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia.”

Investment banks expect China’s economy to expand at a more sluggish pace in 2024 compared with 2023 — even last year the Chinese economy had a slower-than-expected recovery after exiting Covid-19 restrictions.

“The government has refused to issue very strong stimulus to to help the economy and structurally, the policy flip flop Beijing has done over the past few years has damaged confidence,” Wang said.

China markets are closed this week for the Chinese New Year holidays.

– Sheila Chiang

Many U.S. companies have caught the attention of investors amid the artificial intelligence boom, but there are “underappreciated beneficiaries” in Asia-Pacific, according to Morgan Stanley.

It said Japan stands out, with 53% of companies seen as AI beneficiaries — nearly matching the United States’ 54%, above Europe’s 50% and Asia-Pacific ex-Japan’s 39%.

Here are some names in Morgan Stanley’s screens of AI beneficiaries — enablers, adopters and those that are both — that it says have the “most potential for outperformance over the next 12 months.”

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Weizhen Tan

All three stock major indexes ended the day higher, with the S&P 500 cinching a new record high.

The broad market index rose 0.58% to end at 5,029.73. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 348.85 points, or 0.91%, to finish at 38,773.12. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.30% to close at 15,906.17.

— Lisa Kailai Han