French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies said on Thursday net profit doubled in the second quarter as conflict in the Middle East pushed up hydrocarbon prices.
TotalEnergies said in a statement that net profit amounted to $5.4bn in the period from April to June, up from $2.7bn in the same period a year earlier.
"In a high-price environment related to the conflict in the Middle East, TotalEnergies is capitalising on its integrated model and diversification," said chief executive Patrick Pouyanne.
The company had already reported a very strong rise in net profit in the first three months of the year, also driven by soaring oil and gas prices as well as its trading activities.
The group stated that its oil and gas production benefited from organic growth of more than 4% year-on-year, linked to the ramp-up of projects launched over the past year in Brazil, the US and Libya.
These "partially offset" the impact of production losses in the Middle East, the group said.
Although part of this production could not be lifted "given the difficulties in accessing the Strait of Hormuz," the group's Exploration & Production division — where the group generates most of its profitability — reported higher adjusted net operating income, TotalEnergies said.
Infosys
Indian IT giant Infosys on Thursday trimmed the upper end of its annual revenue growth forecast for the current financial year after reporting weaker-than-expected results for the June quarter.
Infosys is India's second-largest software services exporter and earns more than 80% of its revenue from Western markets.
The Bengaluru-headquartered firm — along with its rivals — has struggled with a demand slowdown over the last two years due to global uncertainty made worse by the Middle East war and fierce competition from generative AI solutions.
Infosys said revenue for the financial year ending March 2027 is projected to grow between 1.5% to 3.0% on a constant-currency basis.
Four months ago, the company put out a forecast of 1.5% to 3.5% growth.
The software outsourcer's revenue for the April-June quarter grew 14% year-on-year to 482.11bn rupees ($4.98bn).
Analysts, however, had estimated a topline of 483.6bn rupees.
Infosys's net profit also rose a little over 12% to 77.69bn rupees, missing the 79.03bn rupees projected by analysts.
The company on Thursday also said that executive vice president Ashiss Kumar Dash would take over as CEO after current chief executive Salil Parekh's term ends in April.
India's $315bn IT industry has over the last year grappled with muted client spending on big technology projects as artificial intelligence tools from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI offer new ways of doing labour-intensive work that was previously outsourced.
EasyJet
British airline EasyJet, the target of a multi-billion-pound takeover battle, said on Thursday that profits plunged in the third quarter as the Middle East war sent jet fuel prices soaring.
Profit before tax slumped 70% to £85mn ($114mn) in the three months to the end of June, compared to a year earlier, the no-frills carrier said in a statement.
EasyJet is at the centre of a bidding war between two US private equity firms vying for ownership of the carrier that flies mainly across Europe.
It has backed a £5.7bn takeover bid from Apollo, after the US firm's surprise offer of £7.15 per share beat Castlelake's bid of £6.90 per share.
EasyJet's third quarter was impacted by "elevated fuel prices and a reduction in consumer demand following the onset of the Middle East conflict", it said in an earnings statement.
Fuel costs increased by £105mn compared with last year.
"We have continued to manage the impact of the Middle East conflict," chief executive Kenton Jarvis said in a statement.
The carrier added that its full-year performance depended on remaining bookings and fuel prices.
Following the update, EasyJet's share price jumped more than 5% to £6.16 on London's second-tier FTSE 250 index, which left it still below the takeover offers.
Its stock value had meanwhile plunged by as much as 15 % Wednesday.
The sizeable loss had been sparked by "concerns that Apollo's... takeover offer could be threatened or delayed after the European Union said it is reviewing ownership rules to stop foreign investors taking control of airlines in the bloc", said Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor.
"Shares are still trading sharply higher this year, reflecting the takeover premium, suggesting investors still believe a deal will ultimately go through," she added.
As foreign entities, Apollo and Castlelake have to propose an ownership structure that meets UK and European rules requiring firms to be majority owned and controlled by regional nationals.
Thales
French defence and aerospace group Thales reported on Thursday a 21% jump in order intake in the first half of 2026 and stronger-than-expected profit margins, as escalating conflicts around the world lifted military spending, boosting demand for its surveillance and defence systems.
The group said it received orders worth €12.47bn ($14.2bn) in the first six months, up 21% and far exceeding analysts' forecast for a 1% rise. They included 18 orders worth more than €100mn each, it said in a statement, beating last year's intake.
"The European defence rearming is real and coming," Citi analysts said, noting the strong order intake likely contributed to the free cashflow of €1.87bn, far ahead of an expected €0.47bn in an analysts' consensus published by Thales.
Adjusted earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) increased by 11.4% on an organic basis to €1.37bn, also ahead of analyst expectations, and driven by higher defence and aerospace margins, offsetting weaker performance in the cyber and digital divisions.
"We note for the first time defence margins stand meaningfully above 13% at 13.9% in H1," Jefferies analysts said in a note.
Sales at Europe's largest defence electronics group rose 7.8% organically to €10.95bn, in line with a company-provided consensus of analysts. Defence, which generates more than half of group sales, grew 13.1%.
Earlier this month, Thales raised its 2026 order-intake and cash-generation targets, lifting its book-to-bill ratio — order intake versus revenue — to 1.1 from 1.0. It also maintained guidance for organic sales growth between 6% and 7% and its adjusted EBIT margin between 12.6% and 12.8%.
Thales CEO Patrice Caine said the EU's planned secured communication satellite constellation, called Iris², represented a "huge opportunity" for Thales. Germany's willingness to make its own constellation complementary with Iris² instead of in competition with it was a positive sign, he said on a call with analysts.
Germany has been working on its own constellation with Airbus, Rheinmetall and OHB, raising concerns about fragmentation of European efforts.
Nokia
Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia said that demand for its AI and cloud services drove sales higher in the second quarter, but restructuring charges ate into earnings.
The second quarter "demonstrates our strategy is delivering results," chief executive Justin Hotard said in a statement.
"Since we set out our plan late last year, Team Nokia has focused on maximising our opportunity in the AI supercycle. I am encouraged by the execution and progress we have made in a short period of time. We enter the second half with momentum," he said.
Nokia booked profit of €5.0mn ($5.7mn) for the period from April to June, down from €96mn a year earlier.
Second-quarter sales, on the other hand, rose by 8% to €4.8bn.
The group attributed the sharp drop in earnings to restructuring charges which are projected to amount to €800mn for the full year.
Underlying or operating profit — which strip out one-off factors — rose by 18% to €434mn.
"In the second quarter, our AI and cloud order intake was €2.8bn while sales more than doubled year-on-year," said CEO Hotard. "The strength was broad-based. We expect around half of these orders to convert to revenue over the next 12 months."
Repsol
Spanish energy giant Repsol said on Thursday it net profit in the first half of the year more than tripled, boosted by a surge in oil and gas prices due to the Middle East conflict.
Net profit for the January-June period rose 265% from a year earlier to €2.2bn ($2.58bn), compared with €603mn in the same period of 2025, the company said in a statement.
Second-quarter net profit rose to €1.27bn from €929mn in the first quarter, despite the company having no assets in the Middle East, where hostilities have fuelled higher crude prices.
In recent months, Repsol has expanded its operations in Venezuela, where it owns a 50% stake in the offshore Perla gas field, one of Latin America's largest, and participates in several oil projects with state-owned company PDVSA.
In June, the company signed an agreement to explore a field in Lake Maracaibo, the birthplace of Venezuela's oil industry.
Earlier in the second quarter, Repsol said it had reached an agreement with Venezuela's interim government allowing it to regain operational control of its Petroquiriquire joint venture, in which it holds a 40-percent stake while PDVSA owns the remaining 60%.
The company has said it aims to increase its gross oil production in Venezuela by 50% over the next 12 months.
Repsol began production in May at the Pikka oil field in Alaska alongside majority partner Santos. Output from the project is expected to reach 80,000 gross barrels per day in the third quarter, the company said.
Repsol, which employs around 25,000 people worldwide, produced an average of 548,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2025.
FAB
First Abu Dhabi Bank, the UAE's biggest bank by assets, reported a 4% rise in second-quarter net profit on Thursday, helped by higher operating income.
Net profit for the three months ended June 30 rose to 5.72bn dirhams ($1.56bn), from 5.51bn dirhams a year earlier.
FAB said operating income increased 7% year-on-year to 10.17bn dirhams, while net interest income jumped 15%.
The Iran war has led to heavy disruption to travel and supply chains, prompting economic measures by the UAE authorities, including steps by the central bank to support banks' liquidity.
The lender said that net impairment charges increased to 950mn dirhams, from 752mn dirhams a year ago.
Customer deposits rose 5% to 853bn dirhams at the end of June, while net loans and advances increased 16% to 661bn dirhams. Last month, the Financial Times reported that FAB had exposure to the insolvencies of properties linked to mortgage lender Market Financial Solutions.
BNP Paribas
French banking giant BNP Paribas on Thursday announced almost-record profits for the second quarter this year, driven by the sale of its stake in a Belgian insurance firm.
The bank said it had made BNP Paribas 4.3bn ($4.9bn) this quarter, hailing the performance of its asset management division, which was boosted by last year's acquisition of AXA IM.
The banking giant's net profit surged 33.4% year-on-year, in line with expectations from analysts surveyed by financial news agency Bloomberg and data provider FactSet.
Its profits — approaching a record set in 2023 — were bolstered by a gain of around €850mn linked to the sale of a 25% stake in AG Insurance through its Belgian subsidiary.
Alphabet
Alphabet has reported its best-ever quarter of growth for its cloud computing division, but faced investor scrutiny after concerns about continued delays to its flagship AI model were aggravated by a $15bn increase in capital spending plans for 2026. The search giant now expects to spend between $195bn and $205bn in capital expenditures, its finance chief Anat Ashkenazi said on a conference call with analysts. The company said last quarter that it planned to spend between $180bn and $190bn this year.
"We have increased our capacity quite significantly over the past three years. The demand still outpaces that investment," Ashkenazi said in justifying the increased spending plans. She added that faster-than-expected delivery of capacity contributed to the hike.
Revenue at Google Cloud rose 82% to $24.8bn during the quarter ended June, driven by strong demand from AI-hungry enterprises worldwide. Analysts on average expected a 64% increase, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Advertising revenue came in at $81.6bn compared to estimates of $81.1bn. Total revenue for the quarter was $119.8bn, beating the consensus estimate of $116.9bn.
But, adjusted profit per share of $2.85 fell slightly short of Wall Street projections of $2.89. And the company reported negative free cash flow for the first time in its history, burning $5.9bn this quarter.
"After a negative cash flow quarter, the new raise in capex does not sit well for Alphabet," said Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com. "The market's most reliable cash generators are now spending more than they bring in. As long as revenue keeps accelerating, investors will tolerate it. But capital has a real cost again, and the room for error is shrinking every quarter."
While Google Cloud has made Alphabet a big beneficiary of the AI boom, the company's own AI efforts have lost some steam this year after it delayed the June launch of its next flagship model, Gemini 3.5 Pro.
That has left Google trailing in the AI coding tools market and fueled concerns on Wall Street, especially as Anthropic and OpenAI have consistently rolled out enterprise-focused upgrades, and Chinese open-source models have also gained strong traction.
During the question-and-answer portion of the earnings call, multiple analysts pressed CEO Sundar Pichai for clarity around whether Google could keep with its rivals at the frontier of model development.
"There are many attributes on which we are still at the frontier. There are areas where we've acknowledged we need to improve; coding and agentic coding is an example of that," Pichai said on the call.
Pichai said that while Google continued to test Gemini 3.5 Pro, it had also started training Gemini 4 and was "applying a lot of our compute and effort in that direction" in order to remain competitive.
"We are both very committed and very confident of being at the frontier for the next generation," he said.
Equinor
Norwegian energy giant Equinor has said that rising hydrocarbon prices as a result of the war in the Middle East sent its bottom line soaring in the three months to June.
Equinor said in a statement that net profit jumped to $4.8bn in the second quarter from $1.3bn in the same period in 2025.
"Strong production in the second quarter enabled us to capture value from higher prices, contributing to strong cash flow and financial results," said chief executive, Anders Opedal.
Like European peers such as TotalEnergies and BP, Equinor's earnings are being boosted by the surge in oil prices triggered by the war in the Middle East.
Production also rose by 3% year-on-year to 2.16mn barrels of oil equivalent per day, thanks to the ramp-up of three fields in Norwegian waters.
The group's preferred profitability yardstick, adjusted operating income — which strips out certain exceptional items — rose by 76% to nearly $11.48bn, slightly above analysts' expectations.
"We made progress in implementing the priorities set... to ensure increased energy supply, growth in cash flows and superior returns," said CEO Opedal.
"Reliable energy supply is essential in an unstable world marked by heightened geopolitical tensions. Our role is to provide energy safely and efficiently, day after day," he said.
Tesla
Tesla has missed analysts' profit forecasts for the second quarter and, for the first time in more than two years, reported negative free cash flow as the Elon Musk-led EV maker accelerated spending on infrastructure for its AI and robotics ambitions.
The profit miss and cash burn come despite record vehicle deliveries in the quarter as a war-induced fuel price surge drove EV demand, especially in Europe, and Tesla deployed more energy storage products.
But those were not enough to offset Musk's spending spree. Musk plans to spend more than $25bn this year, nearly triple what it spent last year, as he bets on Tesla's AI-powered self-driving technology, robotaxis and humanoid robots, over its auto business, which still is the core revenue generator.
But the pivot is expensive, and while much of Tesla's valuation hangs on the promise of potentially high-margin revenue streams, the spending is heightening investor scrutiny.
"Monetization remains the central concern following the earnings miss," said Ryan Lee, senior vice president of product and strategy at exchange-traded product firm Direxion. "The question is how quickly those investments can begin supporting the valuation."
Tesla's profitability was hurt by higher operating expenses driven by AI, lower average selling prices and weaker regulatory credit revenue even as vehicle deliveries rose, the EV maker said on Wednesday.
Tesla pulled the plug on its more expensive Model S sedans and Model X SUVs. That, along with incentives to boost demand, meant average revenue from each Tesla sold dropped to $42,730 from $45,345. Money from regulatory credits, sold to traditional automakers that did not meet emissions standards, is also drying up after a policy change.
At the same time, Tesla made capital expenditures of $5.8bn in the quarter just ended, more than double the amount of the year-ago quarter and the first quarter of this year.
That pushed free cash flow to negative $1.1bn. Analysts had expected a cash burn of $3.3bn.
"This is a massive capex year, but I'm confident that all the things that we are investing in will yield incredible returns," Musk told analysts on a post-earnings conference call.
Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in the second quarter, above Wall Street expectations and up from 384,122 vehicles a year earlier.
The Austin, Texas-based automaker reported revenue of $28.24bn, well above analysts' average estimate of $25.71bn. But adjusted profit in the quarter ended June 30 was 33 cents per share, versus analysts' average expectation of 51 cents per share, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Automotive gross margin also came in at 16.3%, compared with 18.04% analysts expected, according to Visible Alpha data.
Tesla has said it expanded its unsupervised robotaxi service in Austin and launched unsupervised rides in Dallas and Houston in April. The company also operates a robotaxi service in Miami and expanded the service to Orlando and Tampa, Florida. Tesla has previously identified Phoenix and Las Vegas among future expansion markets.
Tesla is counting on its advanced driver assistance software — called Full Self-Driving Supervised — to spur future car sales and revenue growth, and said it grew FSD penetration in the second quarter. The company received approval in April to deploy FSD in the Netherlands, and some other European countries have also allowed the technology following the Dutch approval. Tesla is also pushing for approval in China.
Tesla's shares have fallen more than 15% this year. At about $1.4tn, it remains the world's most valuable automaker by a wide margin, reflecting investor expectations that self-driving software, energy storage, robotaxis and humanoid robots could eventually deliver higher-margin growth than vehicle sales.