This is CNBC's live blog covering European markets.
European markets closed lower on Wednesday, with traders monitoring regional corporate earnings releases and awaiting the U.S. Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy announcement.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed down 0.5% provisionally, with retail stocks down 2.2%, leading the losses.
Europe's pharmaceuticals industry is still reeling from U.S. President Donald Trump's Monday announcement that tariffs for the sector would be announced within the next two weeks.
Shares of Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk bucked the sectoral trend to gain 1.3%, after the company's first-quarter earnings came in above expectations. The firm cut its 2025 guidance, however, citing weakening demand for its blockbuster weight-loss drug Wegovy.
Investors also monitored earnings releases from Ørsted, Pandora, Veolia, Legrand, BMW, Siemens Healthineers, Fresenius, Skanska B, JD Wetherspoon, Vonovia, Delhaize and Telecom Italia on Wednesday.
Across the Atlantic, the Fed's interest rate decision is due at 2 p.m. ET. Fed funds futures trading suggests just a 3.1% chance of the central bank cutting interest rates this meeting, according to CME's FedWatch tool. Traders will nevertheless be listening for Fed Chair Jerome Powell's comments after the announcement for insights into the path of rates and state of the economy.
U.S. stocks opened higher after government spokespeople said U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and top trade official Jamieson Greer would meet with their Chinese counterparts this week in Switzerland. The news was taken as a positive sign for developments on trade negotiations after turbulent market action following President Donald Trump's tariff announcement last month.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong markets jumped over 2% to lead gains in Asia-Pacific after China's central bank and financial regulators announced sweeping plans to cut key interest rates in an effort to shore up growth in the face of trade worries.
- CNBC's Lee Ying Shan and Alex Harring contributed reporting to this summary
Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen weighs in on the impact of compounded drugs on first-quarter Wegovy sales while forecasting a rebound later this year.
U.S. stocks advanced in morning deals as investors looked toward the Federal Reserve interest rate announcement expected later in the day.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 225 points higher, or 0.5%. The S&P 500 gained 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.3%.
Alexander Lacik, CEO of Pandora, discusses first-quarter results, revised 2025 guidance and explains how U.S. tariffs might impact the business.
New manufacturing orders in Germany rose by 3.6% month on month on an adjusted basis, provisional data from the country's statistics bureau Destatis showed on Wednesday.
Analysts polled by Reuters had been expecting orders to increase by 1.3%.
The March figures marked the first rise in industrial orders for Germany this year.
Retail sales fell by 0.1% month on month in both the euro zone and the European Union in March, preliminary data from statistics office Eurostat showed on Wednesday.
Countries that saw the biggest contraction in retail sales were Slovenia, where sales volumes were 2% lower on a monthly basis; Estonia, where sales fell by 1.3%; and Slovakia, where retail sales were down 0.9%.
British construction activity continued to slide in April, S&P Global said in its latest UK Construction PMI on Wednesday, marking the industry's fourth consecutive month of output declines amid rising business uncertainty.
Commercial projects had fallen at their fastest rate since mid-2020, researchers said, while cost pressures had led to a ramping up of job cuts in the sector.
However, S&P Global noted that April saw the slowest decline in total activity in three months, with house building showing resilience.
Shares of Swedish carmaker Volvo were 0.1% higher at 10:54 a.m. London time, paring gains from earlier in the session.
It came after the company said it would cut 5% of the workforce at its Charleston, South Carolina plant, according to Reuters, with the company citing new trade tariffs and market conditions as drivers of the decision.
Volvo reportedly said the cuts were separate from the hundreds of U.S. layoffs announced in its first-quarter earnings report last week.
A spokesperson for Volvo was not immediately available to respond when contacted by CNBC.
Wind farm operator Orsted announced on Wednesday that it would discontinue its Hornsea 4 project, a move expected to incur costs of up to 4.5 billion Danish krone this year ($680 million).
The company cited multiple "adverse developments" that had influenced its decision to withdraw funding for the project, including rising supply chain costs, higher interest rates, and greater risks involved with completing construction within the current timeline.
"These developments have increased the execution risk and deteriorated the value creation of the project," it said in a statement on Wednesday. "Therefore, Ørsted has taken the decision to stop further spend on the project at this time and terminate the project's supply chain contracts."
Hornsea 4 would have been Orsted's fourth windfarm site in the Hornsea Zone of the North Sea, with the U.K. government awarding the company a contract last year to sell energy generated from the farm at 2012 prices. At the time, Orsted said it was targeting commissioning of the project by the end of 2030.
Wednesday also saw Orsted confirm its full-year guidance for 2025 and post an 18% year-on-year jump in operating profit. Quarterly operating profit came in at 8.87 billion Danish krone, above the 8.16 billion krone expected by analysts polled by LSEG.
Shares of Orsted were down 1.3% by 10:39 a.m. in London.
Regional health-care stocks led losses in Europe on Wednesday, with the Stoxx Healthcare index shedding 1