(Reuters) – European stocks inched higher on Wednesday after marking their strongest two-day gain in more than a year, with defensive stocks rising as investors weighed the effectiveness of existing vaccines against the Omicron coronavirus variant.
After jumping 3.8% over the past two days, the region-wide STOXX 600 index nudged 0.1% higher in early deals.
Germany’s BioNTech, which makes COVID-19 vaccines with Pfizer, fell 6.3% after a study showed that the Omicron variant can partially evade protection from two doses of their COVID-19 vaccine.
Sectors considered more stable during times of uncertainty such as healthcare and food & beverages were the top gainers.
L’Oreal rose 1.1% after consumer giant Nestle said it would cut its stake in the French cosmetics brand by selling shares worth 8.9 billion euros ($10 billion) to about 20%.
Shares in Nestle rose 1.6% to trade just short of record highs.
Travel shares fell as tour operator TUI’s UK-listed shares slumped 5.4% after it posted an annual loss of over 2 billion euros ($2.26 billion).
German meal-kit company Hellofresh slid 8.3% after an underwhelming outlook for 2022 earnings.
Chipmakers Infineon Technologies dropped 2.9% and STMicroelectronics slipped 1.3% after Morgan Stanley downgraded the stocks to “equal-weight”.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V)
