European shares were mixed on Thursday as investors parsed corporate earnings to gauge the fallout of U.S. President Donald Trump's erratic trade policies, while awaiting European Central Bank's policy decision later in the day.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index edged lower 0.4%, as of 0712 GMT, with no major escalations in the trade war helping the index climb 4% this week.
Investors also shied away from making big bets ahead of a four-day-long weekend on account of Good Friday and Easter Monday.
France's Hermes fell 4% after the Birkin bag maker posted a rare quarterly sales miss, joining rival LVMH, which also reported sales below expectations earlier this week.
Tit-for-tat tariffs sparked by Trump's multi-front trade war have dimmed the global growth outlook in recent weeks, triggering market volatility reminiscent of the COVID-19-driven slump in March 2020.
ECB's rate decision is scheduled for 1215 GMT, with markets seeing a rate cut as all-but-certain to cushion a struggling economy from tariff uncertainty.
Siemens Energy jumped 10% after the German energy group raised its outlook for the current fiscal year after posting its best profit margin since being spun off from Siemens.
The stock helped Germany's benchmark index outperform its European counterparts.
(Reporting by Sukriti Gupta and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
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