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By Nikhil Sharma and Johann M Cherian
(Reuters) - European shares closed at an all-time high on Thursday, with mining companies in the lead following a raft of upbeat earnings reports, while investors weighed the likelihood of a Ukraine peace plan.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index was up 1.2%, with benchmark indexes in Germany, France, Italy and Spain up about 1.5% each.
Basic resources was the sectoral winner, adding 4% after the world's largest steel maker, ArcelorMittal, forecast improving steel demand for 2025, sending its shares up 13.3%, while Swedish miner Boliden advanced 13% on a bigger-than-expected rise in fourth-quarter core earnings.
Aurubis reported first-quarter pretax profit above market expectations, sending Europe's largest copper producer's shares up 7.4%. Higher base-metal prices further aided the sector's gains.
Meanwhile, equity indexes geographically closer to Russia such as Austria jumped 3.4%, Poland shot up 2.6% and Finland advanced 1.8%, after a report said preparations for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump are at an "advanced stage," raising expectations a deal to end the nearly three-year Ukraine-Russian conflict could be near.
On the other hand, the aerospace and defence index fell 0.9% and logged the biggest one-day decline in over one-week. Saab AB, Rheinmetall and Hensoldt among others fell between 4.5% and 6.1%.
The defence index has more than doubled since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and hit an all-time high in the previous session.
European equities have outperformed their Wall Street peers in the first six weeks of 2025 as investors continue to seize on much lower valuations from the region in light of a more stimulative policy outlook.
Still, investors were on the lookout for any tariff-related headlines for the European Union after the U.S. imposed a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports this week, prompting retaliatory measures from Beijing.
"I think the tariffs on the EU are going to be more of Trump willing to negotiate actually with Europe," said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior market analyst at Swissquote Bank.
"It's not going to be 25% tariffs all of a sudden because Trump knows that if Europe does the same, that's going to damage the relationship and he doesn't have much to win."
Among other stocks, Danish shipping giant Maersk rose 6.3% after it reported fourth-quarter profit above forecasts.
French semiconductor materials supplier Soitec sank 30% after it cut its sales forecast for 2025.
AstraZeneca added 5.9% after forecasting 2025 sales above analysts' expectations.
Societe Generale soared 13.2% after the lender's fourth-quarter profit more than doubled.
(Reporting by Nikhil Sharma and Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala, Sonia Cheema and Chris Reese)
