European stocks rally as investors await ECB decision, tech earnings

European government bond and stock markets saw a rally on Thursday as traders anticipated the European Central Bank's next move and awaited earnings from Amazon and Intel. The STOXX 600, an index of European stocks, rose 0.5%, despite a 1% decline in Nasdaq futures and sporadic trading in Asia. The euro and yields on European government bonds fell as oil and natural gas prices decreased before the anticipated pause in the ECB's rate hike cycle.

ECB President Christine Lagarde announced her intention to step down early, leaving her post in February. This news, combined with a more confident tone from Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, led to a rally in US Treasuries. Meanwhile, MSCI's Asia-Pacific index fell nearly 0.5%, and Japan's Nikkei ended up more than 1%. Samsung reported record results due to strong demand for its memory chips but saw a 4% drop in its shares as it did not announce plans to boost returns.

SK Hynix, another AI-focused company, continued to surge as it planned to return about $75 billion to shareholders. Intel and Amazon were set to report earnings later that day, fueling investors' scrutiny of monetization timelines versus capital expenditure burn rates.