- ECB cuts interest rates by 25 basis points
- Lagarde press conference at 1245 GMT
- Hermes Q1 sales miss forecast; down 2.9%
April 17 (Reuters) - European shares held their losses on Thursday after European Central Bank eased borrowing rates as expected, while investors parsed corporate earnings to gauge the fallout of U.S. President Donald Trump's erratic trade plans.
The ECB cut interest rates for the seventh time in a year, bringing the deposit rate to 2.25% in a move to prop up confidence in an already struggling economy as tariffs curb trade and uncertainty weighs on consumption and investment.
"This might appear a sensible strategy, given huge uncertainty about future global trade relations. But considering the economic backdrop, there is no need for the ECB to be so hesitant," said Natasha May, global market analyst at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.3%, as of 1229 GMT, but remained on track for a 4% climb this week.
Other regional indexes - Germany , France, Spain, and the UK also fell between 0.2% and 0.8%.
France's Hermes dropped 2.9% after the Birkin bag maker posted a rare quarterly sales miss, joining rival LVMH, which also reported sales below expectations earlier this week.
Analysts have pared their forecasts for European corporate profitability as tit-for-tat tariffs sparked by Trump's multi-front trade war have dimmed the global growth outlook, triggering market volatility that is reminiscent of the early days of COVID-19.
The European benchmark index is down about 10% from its March record closing high.
Investors will sift through ECB President Christine Lagarde's comments at a 1245 GMT press conference for hints on futures rate cuts.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged that the country's economic growth appears to be slowing, but added that the Fed would wait for more data before changing interest rates, causing a selloff on Wall Street selloff.
Investors also shied away from making big bets ahead of a four-day-long weekend on account of Good Friday and Easter Monday.
Defence stocks, which had surged earlier this year on the prospect of higher defence spending and are among the best European performers this year, racked up the most losses for the day, shedding 1.7%.
Siemens Energy jumped 12.8% after the German energy group raised its outlook for the current fiscal year and posted its best profit margin since being spun off from former parent Siemens AG.
Biomerieux fell 4.5%, the most on STOXX, after the French in-vitro diagnostics firm said currency exchange would have a larger impact on 2025 core earnings than it had previously forecast.
Reporting by Sukriti Gupta and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala, Varun H K and Shinjini Ganguli
Source: Reuters