Anisha Sircar & Ambar Warrick

(Reuters) -European stock closed higher Thursday due to strong earnings from technology and food stocks. The European Central Bank maintained its huge stimulus taps open, and its belief that a spike in inflation was temporary.

With the pan-European close closing at 0.2%, it was higher for food and drink and technology with 1.6% and 1.3% respective gains.

Anheuser-Busch InBev beer brewery saw a 10.3% increase in profit during the third quarter, and Capgemini French IT services company gained 6.0% because of its strong outlook.

Anheuser-Busch was 1.7% the most important boost to the Belgian stock benchmark.

Weak earnings from the automobile and energy industries impeded further gains.

Royal Dutch Shell (LON) fell 3.0%, after it reported a third-quarter loss below its expectations. It also hurt shares of TotalEnergies (NYSE:) & BP (NYSE.

Although the ECB made a decision that was largely in line with expectations, equity markets did not react to it. In December, the bank may make a decision about its pandemic-related emergency stimulus.

You’re flying if your job is as an equity trader. Stuart Cole, Equiti Capital’s head macro economist, stated that there is no indication of tightening monetary policy.

However, investors were skeptical about the bank’s attitude on transitory inflation. Initial data from Thursday indicated that consumers’ prices rose in the biggest economy of the eurozone in October.

Cole, Equiti Capital said that some strength in Germany’s figure was due to base effects. However, even taking all this into consideration it is difficult not to conclude inflationary pressures increase.

German stocks dropped 0.1% in the wake of the data.

Volkswagen (DE): Europe’s biggest carmaker dropped 4.5% following a cut in its delivery forecast and a lower than expected quarterly profit. This was due to the global chip crunch. The auto index overall fell 0.8%.

After a disappointing quarter-end report, Evolution online casino in Sweden slumped 8.2% and was one of the lowest performers on STOXX 600.

European stocks still have strong potential for gains due to a wide range of positive earnings. This pushed STOXX 600 closer to its record highs.

Refinitiv data shows that profits at Europe Inc should increase by 52% over last year’s third quarter.

Airbus rose 1.8% following the raising of full-year financial targets by the largest commercial aircraft manufacturer in the world.

Lloyds Banking Group (LON) rose 1.3% following a quarter of better than expected profits.