European stocks edge lower; ongoing Middle East conflict saps confidence in Stock News 05/03/2026 European stocks traded lower Thursday, with investors warily following the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which has now entered its sixth day. At 03:02 ET (08:02 GMT), the DAX index in Germany dropped 0.4%, the CAC 40 in France slipped 0.4% and the FTSE 100 in the U.K. fell 0.1%. Iran war testing “global economic resilience” The war in the Middle East, started with missile attacks by the U.S. and Israel on Iranian targets over the weekend, has widened sharply, with a U.S. submarine sinking an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka on Wednesday, and NATO air defences destroying an Iranian ballistic missile fired towards Turkey. There are few signs of a conflict stopping anytime soon, with the U.S. Senate voting, largely along party lines, against a motion aimed at stopping the air campaign and requiring that military action be authorized by Congress. Meanwhile, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran’s slain supreme leader, has emerged as ‌a frontrunner to succeed him, the White House said on Wednesday, implying Tehran was not about to buckle to pressure. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the conflict was testing “global economic resilience”. “This conflict, if proven to be prolonged, has obvious potential to affect global energy prices, market sentiments, growth and inflation. And it would place new demands on the shoulders of policy-makers everywhere,” she said earlier Thursday. Eurozone retail sales data due Also hitting sentiment has been the worry that the soaring energy prices will result in rising inflation in Europe, a region that is very reliant on imported energy, putting pressure on the European Central Bank to hike interest rates. That said, Bank of France Governor and ECB policy maker Francois Villeroy de Galhau said on Thursday that he saw no reason for the central bank to raise its interest rates as it stands. He added that the conflict may have an upward effect on inflation and downward effect on growth, but that the proportion will depend on the duration of the situation. Investors get a chance to look at the latest retail sales figures from the eurozone later in the session, with the January monthly figure expected to rise 0.3%, an annual gain of 1.7%. Earlier Thursday, China set its 2026 economic growth target at 4.5%-5% on Thursday, slightly lower than the 5% pace achieved last year, and the lowest target since 1991. Reckitt impresses with Q4 sales There are also more quarterly earnings for investors to wade through Thursday, as the quarterly reporting season continued apace. U.K. consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser (LON:RKT) beat fourth-quarter like-for-like net sales growth expectations, led by strong performance in emerging markets, and said it expected its core businesses to grow at 4% to 5% in 2026. German logistics group Deutsche Post (ETR:DHLn) forecast a higher operating profit for 2026, broadly in line with market expectations, despite the worsening geopolitical environment. Zurich Insurance (SIX:ZURN) posted its highest-ever annual profit in 2025, lifted by a record performance at a U.S. business the Swiss insurer does not own and the quietest catastrophe year in recent memory. Galderma (SIX:GALD) more than doubled its peak sales target for skin drug Nemluvio to above $4 billion, after the Swiss dermatology company posted record annual net sales surpassing $5 billion for the fir