European stocks retreat on tech, inflation fallouts

European stock markets retreated Friday, dragged down by disappointing earnings from Apple and Amazon, with additional pressure coming from news of soaring eurozone inflation.

The US tech titans announced billions of dollars in quarterly profits on Thursday, but supply chain bottlenecks and the global chip shortage dented performance.

Ahead of the Apple and Amazon results, US stocks had closed higher Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq striking a new all-time high.

“Disappointing results from the tech giants after hours offset positive momentum from Wall Street’s record close,” noted Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor.

Asian stock markets closed mixed on Friday, while oil prices rose and the dollar mostly climbed.

Forecast-beating profits from some of the world’s biggest companies

have helped fan a rally across global equities this month, helping to temper concerns about surging inflation and the end of the era of central bank largesse.

But the results from Apple and Amazon, coupled with eurozone inflation data Friday, soured sentiment heading into the weekend break.

Inflation in the single-currency bloc surged to a record rate this month as high energy prices jumped and supply woes bit, Eurostat said Friday, casting a cloud over the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.