Wall Street stocks slipped into the red on Thursday, while FTSE 100 (^FTSE) outperformed against its European peers, hitting a new intraday high for the third session in a row.
It came as US economic growth slowed sharply, at an annual rate of 1.6% in the first quarter, meaning it only expanded by 0.4% in the three months. This is a slowdown on the fourth quarter of 2023, when real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at 3.4% per year, or by 0.85% in the quarter.
Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics, said: "Exports ended up increasing by only 0.9%, illustrating the impact of weak global demand, while imports surged by 7.2%. Altogether, net exports subtracted nearly 0.9% points from GDP growth, with inventories generating an additional drag of nearly 0.4 percentage points."
Along with a barrage of corporate earnings in London, there will be yet more quarterly figures from America's tech titans on Thursday, with Google, Microsoft and Intel all due to report today.
London’s benchmark index was almost 0.5% higher by the end of the session
Germany's DAX (^GDAXI) dipped 1% and the CAC (^FCHI) in Paris headed 0.9% lower
The pan-European STOXX 600 (^STOXX) was down almost 0.7%
Barclays (BARC.L) shares slumped after posting a 12% fall in first quarter profit
Wall Street opened lower as traders awaited the latest quarter earnings from Microsoft (MSFT)
Pound (GBPUSD=X) was 0.2% up against the dollar at 1.2493
Miner Anglo American (AAL.L) saw its shares soar after a buyout offer from BHP Group (BHP.L)