Euronext chief calls Donald Trump’s economic barrage a ‘wake-up call’ to Europe

Unlock the Editor’s Digest without cost

UK watchdog changes tack and provisionally approves $570mn travel deal

Which LLM Should You Use for Your Business? [Pros and Cons]

US President Donald Trump’s barrage of financial insurance policies is a “actual, real elementary wake-up name” that’s forcing Europe to handle its competitiveness drawback, in keeping with the chief government of the area’s greatest inventory change operator.

Stéphane Boujnah, head of Paris-based Euronext, mentioned that current studies from Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta on competitiveness and the way forward for the only market, “mixed with the shock created by the preliminary selections introduced by the Trump administration”, had led European policymakers to handle “the structural weaknesses in Europe”.

Trump has launched a blitz of insurance policies in his first month in workplace — together with tariffs towards the US’s greatest buying and selling companions — in staunch assist of American companies and jobs. His strikes have left European policymakers speeding to guard the bloc and catch up at a time of stagnant financial progress.

“Issues will change [but] like every part in Europe it would take longer,” Boujnah added.

Trump’s insurance policies imply the valuation hole between US and European property “isn’t justified”, he mentioned. Fund managers have been “within the technique of connecting [the] dots” when it got here to the impression of Washington’s new financial strategy, Boujnah added, and have been pouring money into the continent’s undervalued markets.

“In case you prohibit immigration, in case you enhance tariffs, in case you cut back taxation and in case you enhance spending, throughout time gravity results in further inflation,” mentioned Boujnah, who has led Euronext since 2015 and beforehand labored as an M&A banker.

The pan-continental Euro Stoxx 600 index has risen 8 per cent to date this 12 months, outstripping the S&P 500 which has gained 3.5 per cent.

“The US is perceived as being overvalued in lots of segments and Europe is perceived as being undervalued,” he mentioned, including that world asset managers have been specializing in Europe “to seize undervalued rising property”.

He was talking as Euronext reported €1.6bn in revenues for 2024, a ten per cent enhance on the earlier 12 months. The corporate runs inventory exchanges in Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin, amongst different cities, and reported a 5 per cent rise in revenues from preliminary public choices.

On Thursday, Unilever mentioned its ice-cream enterprise would have a primary listing in Amsterdam quite than London, and Boujnah mentioned the corporate had confronted “very robust strain coming from all around the world to think about options”.