Europe midday: Stoxx hits fresh high; Melrose tanks

(Sharecast News) - European shares hit fresh records again on Friday despite a weaker showing on Wall Street overnight, driven by a fall in Nvidia stock.

The pan-regional Stoxx 600 index was up 0.16% at 634.22 at 1205 GMT, having hit 636.16 in the morning session. All major bourses were higher. US stocks finished mostly lower, with a sharp plunge in the share price of tech behemoth Nvidia weighing heavily on the Nasdaq as record quarterly results from the company failed to excite investors.

"This looks less like bad news and more like sky-high expectations colliding with some classic 'buy the rumour, sell the news' behaviour. Around earnings season, short-term traders, hedge funds, and fast-moving algorithms tend to dominate the action, creating plenty of noise," said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Matt Britzman."

"Long-term investors are usually better off looking through this kind of volatility. Nvidia's slide also weighed on much of the semiconductor sector, dragging chip stocks lower across the board."

On the economics front German import prices fell 2.3% last month year on year, according to official data. Prices rose 1.1% compared with December - the largest month-on-month increase recorded since January 2025.

In equity news, UK aerospace firm Melrose slumped despite a sharp rise in profits on the back of higher military spending.

Shares in Acciona surged after the Spanish infrastructure company posted a 90% rise in net profits after markets closed on Thursday.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com