European shares flat as BP offsets gains in luxury stocks

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was flat at 621.66 points and was just a whisker away from an intra-day all-time high

Europe’s benchmark share index was little changed on Tuesday as a decline in BP after it suspended share buybacks countered gains in luxury stocks following a better-than-expected earnings update from Kering.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was flat at 621.66 points at 0915 GMT and was just a whisker away from an intra-day all-time high.

BP declined 4% after the UK energy giant posted quarterly profit in line with analysts’ expectations and suspended its share buyback programme as it wrote down around $4 billion in its renewables and biogas businesses.

The broader energy sector slid 0.7%.

While there has been an industry-wide pullback from green investment, this paints a sorry picture for BP’s ability to leverage its expertise into the green energy economy, said Joshua Sherrard-Bewhay, ESG analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

In contrast, luxury stocks added 1.6% and were among top sectoral gains, led by a 13.5% jump in France’s Kering. Investors were relieved that the company reported a slightly smaller-than-expected drop in fourth-quarter sales, as new CEO Luca de Meo battles to stabilise the Gucci owner.

Meanwhile, AI-disruption worries showed signs of spilling over to other areas of the market.

Insurance stocks dropped 1.3% and led sectoral declines on concerns that new AI tools could accelerate disruption in the sector after Insurify released an AI‑powered comparison tool built on ChatGPT.

This movement is not anecdotal: it reflects a return of flows to Europe, which has long remained on the sidelines of major market dynamics, said John Plassard, head of investment strategy at Cité Gestion.

Still, uncertainties about the outlook for traditional businesses in the face of new AI models is likely to add an element of caution.