The European Central Bank cut its key interest rate on Thursday to boost an economy that’s struggling to grow as consumers burned by inflation warily eye price tags and businesses try to navigate political turmoil in leading economies France and Germany.

The European Central Bank’s reduction, the fifth consecutive cut since last summer, came a day after the U.S. Federal Reserve held interest rates.

The Fed will likely be on a more hawkish path, so significant divergence from the ECB could risk flight of capital towards the Dollar.”

European stocks are expected to open in mixed territory Wednesday as global market jitters over AI tech rivalry between the U.S. and China eases.

Shares of ASML jumped 10.6% after the Dutch company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter bookings of 7.088 billion euros ($7.39 billion). Its peers ASM International, BE Semiconductor and Infineon gained between 2.7% and 7.5%. Technology was the top winning sector, soaring 4.5%.

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Equity markets diverged Wednesday as attention turned away from recent turbulence in tech stocks to the outlook for interest rates, with the Fed and the ECB both holding their first

Donald Trump's rapid move to ban a "digital dollar" has left the field wide open, observers say, for China and Europe to make their already-advanced central bank digital currency (CBDC) prototypes into global standard-setters.

Global shares rose as investors digested earnings from Microsoft and Meta in the wake of this week's rout in technology stocks, while the

Economists say Trump’s second-term tariffs, if carried out as promised, could put even more downward pressure on the economy, because he’s framed them as across-the-board, rather than targeted to particular consumer products or commodities.

U.S. stocks slipped after the Federal Reserve held its main interest rate steady and broke a run of cuts that began in September. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% Wednesday. The