Europe's stock exchanges climbed to new long-term highs on Thursday.
The Eurozone leading index EuroStoxx 50 tied on its most recent gains and rose by 0.41 percent to 4162 points around noon, after climbing to 4166 points, the highest level since 2008.
The development of the French Cac 40 was similar, which set a new record since the turn of the millennium and recently achieved an increase of 0.47 percent to 6777.81 points.
The British FTSE 100 took it more leisurely, losing 0.02 percent to 7122.55 points an hour before the Bank of England's interest rate decision.
The monetary authorities are likely to leave the key interest rate at the current low level, but there are signs of disagreement about the continuation of the bond purchase program at the current level.
Technology stocks in demand
From an industry perspective, technology stocks were in particular demand on Thursday: Their industry index in the Stoxx Europe 600 continued its record hunt with an increase of almost one percent, as did the broad-based index itself. Lost 7 percent.
The most recent business figures of the companies met with varying levels of echo in the market.
At the engine manufacturer Rolls Royce, investors celebrated the return to the black with a price jump of almost five percent.
Sales, which remained below the previous year's figure in the first half of the year, should increase again in the second half of the year, according to CEO Warren East.
In addition, the MTU competitor announced that it had decided to hold exclusive talks with a consortium led by the financial investor Bain Capital in the planned sale of its subsidiary ITP Aero.
Novo Nordisk continued to benefit from the quarterly report published on Wednesday afternoon: After the sharp rise in price yesterday, the shares of the Danish insulin manufacturer continued their record hunt with a plus of a good four percent.
Zurich posted a price increase of 0.8 percent after the Swiss insurer announced that it would take over a large network of financial advisors in Italy from Deutsche Bank.
No financial details of the transaction were given.
The deal still has to be approved by the responsible authorities, among other things.
In contrast, the initial interest in Credit Agricole quickly waned after quarterly figures: After an initial high since mid-June, investors sold the French bank's paper again - most recently they lost a good one and a half percent.
The mining group and commodities trader Glencore was also unable to convince investors with its half-year balance sheet: Despite profits of billions, a special dividend and the announcement of millions of heavy share buybacks, the shares lost one percent in value.
It hit Nel ASA even worse: The shares plummeted by six percent after it became known that the Norwegian investment fund Alfred Berg Norge had completely separated from its position in the hydrogen company.