UK economy; FTSE 100 Index; Profits

Chris Wylie, chief investment officer at Connor Broadley, talks about economic growth forecasts and company valuations.

Pål Kjeldmo, CFO of Norwegian Aluminum and Renewable Energy, discusses its results and the global aluminum market.

Renault shares rose in morning trading Thursday, after the French automaker said it would propose increasing its earnings per share to 1.85 euros ($1.99) for the fiscal year, up from 0.25 euros previously.

Group CEO Luca De Meo told CNBC's “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday that Renault's guidance was “relatively prudent” and described the market as “challenging.”

“I think there will be a lot of pressure on electric cars, the price drop that we've already been seeing for a few months… but we're also on the other hand optimistic because we'll be launching 10 models, one every month. So we're entering a very favorable product life cycle, including That's electric cars.”

Read the full story here.

-Jenny Reed

Commerzbank on Thursday reported a 55% increase in net profit for 2023, as higher interest rates helped the German banking giant achieve its best results in 15 years.

Net profit for the year beat expectations to 2.2 billion euros ($2.36 billion), up from 1.4 billion euros the previous year. For the fourth quarter, net profit was €395 million, down more than 16% on the same quarter of the previous year, but ahead of the consensus estimates published by Commerzbank.

Read the full story here.

– Katrina Bishop

The UK economy slid into a technical recession at the end of last year – GDP figures showed the economy contracted by 0.3% in the three months to December 2023.

That was worse than the 0.1% contraction economists had expected.

This came after production decreased by 0.1% during the previous quarter. Two consecutive quarters of contraction are widely viewed as indicating a technical recession.

The pound lost its previous gains against the dollar after this news.

European stocks opened higher on Thursday, according to IG data, with the FTSE 100 rising 25 points to 7,569, Germany's DAX rising 43 points to 16,987, and France's CAC rising 21 points to 7,697.

The Italian MIB index rose 77 points to 31,509.

-Jenny Reid

The Japanese economy unexpectedly contracted during the last quarter of 2023, according to government data.

Provisional GDP contracted 0.4% in the fourth quarter from a year ago, after a revised 3.3% decline in the July-September period.

The reading was also well below the Reuters poll's forecast for growth of 1.4%.

Japan also contracted by 0.1% on a quarterly basis, after shrinking by 0.8% in the third quarter compared to the second quarter.

For more, please read the full story.

– Shreyashi Sanyal, Clement Tan

The total value invested in bitcoin surpassed $1 trillion on Wednesday, reaching its highest level in more than two years after bitcoin exchange-traded funds debuted in the United States last month.

The price of Ether, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, surpassed $2,700 to reach its highest level since May 2022, as investors expect the US Securities and Exchange Commission to give the green light to ether ETFs in May.

“We have a global convergence of favorable regulatory activity, and what it does is free up a tremendous amount of institutional capital,” Paul Brody, global blockchain leader at Ernst & Young, told CNBC's “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.

“There is $200 trillion of institutional capital that previously did not have access to these assets, and although these inflows will not happen overnight, we will see a steady allocation of resources to them,” he added.

-Dylan Potts

European semiconductor equipment stocks are likely to outperform as spending on AI chips rises over the next decade, according to Bank of America.

The continent's chip stocks produce the high-tech machinery needed to manufacture the latest generation of chips.

“We raise ours [price targets] “On our EU Semicaps coverage, which we expect to continue to benefit from investment in AI infrastructure,” Bank of America analysts said in a note to clients.

The Wall Street bank said its top picks are likely to rise further, thanks to a “scarcity of value in Europe for AI-related stocks.”

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more about their stock picks here.

-Ganesh Rao

The performance of major Asian markets was mixed over the past year.

Investors are avoiding Chinese stocks, while flooding the markets of India and Japan.

Those interested in stock picking rather than passive investing can look to the bank's list of “alpha” stocks that could outperform the market.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

-Weezin Tan