24th Feb 2026 12:08
(Alliance News) - Stock prices in Europe were mixed on Tuesday afternoon, with market sentiment shaky amid artificial intelligence worries, and as investors continue to digest US President Donald Trump's tariff tirade.
The FTSE 100 index was down 8.84 points, 0.1%, at 10,675.90, eating into earlier declines. It had been down around 0.4% earlier on Tuesday.
The FTSE 250 was up 53.14 points, 0.2%, at 23,599.79, and the AIM all-share was down 0.64 of a point, 0.1%, at 815.62.
The Cboe UK 100 was slightly lower at 1,062.90, the Cboe UK 250 rose 0.4% at 20,940.78, and the Cboe small companies was down 0.3% at 18,470.53.
The CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.2% and the DAX 40 in Frankfurt was marginally lower.
"Risk sentiment is jittery on Tuesday as President Trump's 10% global tariff rate comes into effect," XTB analyst Kathleen Brooks commented.
However, US stocks are called to open higher, though only after slumping overnight. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are each called to open 0.2% higher.
"US stock indices are struggling to find direction right now, and the S&P 500 fell below its 50-day [simple moving average] on Monday, which suggests that short term momentum is to the downside. This is to be expected, as investors find themselves in a confusing risk environment: tariffs, AI fears and credit concerns are battering markets all at once. So far the effects have been mild, the S&P 500 is only down a touch YTD, and more than 60% of S&P 500 members are posting gains so far this year, even amongst all of the risks swirling around markets," Brooks added.
The pound faded to USD1.3491 midday Tuesday, from USD1.3505 late Monday. The euro declined to USD1.1782 from USD1.1801. Against the yen, the buck surged to JPY155.70 from JPY154.33.
The yield on the 10-year US Treasury was steady at 4.04%, where it stood at the time of the London equities close on Monday. The 30-year yield stretched to 4.70% from 4.69%.
Gold fell to USD5,174.17 an ounce early Tuesday afternoon, from USD5,216.70 late Monday. A barrel of Brent fell to USD71.31 from USD71.96.
In London, banking shares struggled. Lloyds Banking Group fell 2.1%, NatWest declined 1.6% and Barclays fell 1.5%. In Paris, Societe Generale fell 1.9% while Deutsche Bank lost 2.0% in Frankfurt.
"A narrative around credit concerns and a potential 2008 scenario forming is also starting to gain traction. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, sounded a warning about the risks of bad loans in the banking system. He said that rival banks are doing 'dumb things' to boost net interest income. He added that AI disruption could cause a souring in the credit cycle as multiple industries come under pressure from AI concerns," XTB analyst Brooks commented. "Fears about credit quality are also weighing on banks in Europe."
Elsewhere in the banking sector, Standard Chartered shares fell 2.0%. It announced a new USD1.5 billion share buyback but reported annual and fourth quarter profit that fell short of consensus.
The lender's fourth quarter pretax profit edged up 1.8% to USD814 million from USD800 million a year prior, falling short of company-compiled consensus of USD1.06 billion.
Reported operating income edged up 2.6% on-year in the final quarter to USD4.93 billion from USD4.80 billion.
For the whole of 2025, pretax profit shot up 16% to USD6.96 billion from USD6.01 billion, but was shy of consensus of USD7.21 billion. Operating income rose 7.2% from USD20.94 billion from USD19.54 billion.
Signs of AI worries hurting sentiment were also evident in London. Relx fell 0.9% and LSEG shed 0.3%. Relx has fallen around 25% year-to-date, and LSEG has lost 15%.
In New York on Monday, IBM fell under the crosshairs of AI worry. IBM shares sank 13% after Anthropic, maker of the AI chatbot Claude, said the model could be used for a key programming language: Common Business-Oriented Language.
"Hundreds of billions of lines of COBOL run in production every day, powering critical systems in finance, airlines, and government. Despite that, the number of people who understand it shrinks every year," Anthropic said in a blog post. "AI excels at streamlining the tasks that once made COBOL modernization cost-prohibitive."
Back in London, Raspberry Pi, which has seen some wild trade of its own in recent days, shot up 13%. Last week Tuesday, it jumped 36%. Gains last week were driven by a social media post which said AI agents such as OpenClaw could drive demand for the firm's single-board computers.
A spokesperson for Raspberry Pi told Bloomberg at the time that "there's nothing from the company side beyond what's already in the public domain".
Elsewhere in London, McBride fell 7.2%. McBride reiterated full-year guidance as it reported a drop in half-year profitability and a modest volume-led increase in revenue.
The Manchester, England-based private-label products manufacturer said pretax profit fell 11% to GBP23.0 million in the six months to December from GBP25.7 million the year prior, or by 1.9% to GBP26.2 million from GBP26.7 million on an adjusted basis.
Adjusted operating profit declined 1.6% to GBP31.5 million from GBP32.0 million.
Revenue edged up 0.8% to GBP475.2 million from GBP471.4 million, aided by volume growth from both private label and contract manufacturing, but fell 2.1% at constant currency.
McBride shares came into Tuesday with a year-to-date gain of some 15%.
By Eric Cunha, Alliance News news editor
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