European stocks fell on Thursday as investors anxiously await the highly-anticipated European Central Bank announcement later this week. The pan-European STOXX 600 index slipped 0.3%, thereby falling from its five-week high achieved at closing on Wednesday.
Credit Suisse was hit particularly hard, plummeting by 8.5% on Thursday morning to a two-week low. This decline comes after the investment banking giant announced its intention to raise 4 billion Swiss francs by selling stock, all while cutting thousands of jobs in an effort to recover from heavy losses.
The European Central Bank is expected to announce a 75 basis point interest rate hike to 0.75%. It is also expected to begin taking steps towards reducing its 8.8 trillion euro balance sheet which has been largely affected by a combination of excessive debt purchases and the issuance of significantly cheap loans.
Joining Credit Suisse in decline was Finish refiner Neste, falling by 7.2% after reporting weaker-than-expected third-quarter operating results, as well as Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicroelectronics, which slipped 3.1% after forecasting a slowdown in sales growth during the final part of 2022. Shell was one of the few growth stocks on the morning, rising 2.1% after posting a third-quarter profit of $9.45 billion