Stock markets increase on a busy day for business results.

On Thursday, investors absorbed a slew of business reports and shrugged off a worse-than-expected US economic slowdown.

As the Federal Reserve aggressively raises US interest rates, the dollar traded around 20-year highs vs the yen and at the highest level in more than five years against the euro.

Trading in key assets is turbulent as investors remain on high alert due to a variety of problems such as the Ukraine war, increasing inflation, increased interest rates, and Chinese Covid lockdowns.

The focus is on the ongoing earnings season, which has produced a mixed bag of results that have dragged on technology companies.

However, experts noted that a forecast-beating result by Facebook parent Meta on Wednesday might bring some comfort to the industry.

Twitter reported mixed first-quarter results on Thursday, with revenues falling short of expectations but active users increasing, only three days after agreeing to be purchased by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Apple and Amazon will also report quarterly earnings later on Thursday.

Wall Street began the day higher, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq up 1.3 percent in early trading.

European markets were also up in the afternoon, while Asia’s major markets ended higher.

“The market will try and try again to get some recovery momentum going to mend what has been a disastrous month,” Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare said.

“There is also a lot of fixing that has to be done,” O’Hare said, noting that the main US indexes were down substantially for the month.

Meanwhile, US official figures reveal that the GDP dropped by 1.4 percent in the first quarter due to the Omicron form of Covid-19 and a reduction in government expenditure.

Investors are also concerned about rising inflation, which has prompted central banks throughout the world to raise interest rates.

Consumer prices in Germany climbed at their quickest rate in four decades in April, reaching 7.4 percent, according to statistics released on Thursday.

Sweden’s central bank raised interest rates from zero to 0.25 percent on Thursday, becoming the last to do so.

The Federal Reserve is anticipated to raise US interest rates by half a point next week, signalling potential significant hikes throughout the year.

However, the Bank of Japan opted to maintain its ultra-easy monetary policy on Thursday, causing the Tokyo stock market to close higher.

So far, the European Central Bank has declined to raise borrowing costs, and ECB vice-president Luis de Guindos indicated on Thursday that a jump in eurozone consumer prices is “quite near” to hitting its high.

Consumers and companies all across the world are feeling the effects of rising costs.

Unilever, the British consumer products conglomerate, reported an increase in sales after passing on increased costs to customers.

McDonald’s likewise reported higher first-quarter sales owing to pricing increases, but earnings fell due to an unnamed tax problem.

In other business news, Standard Chartered’s shares rose in London after the bank, which focuses on Asia and emerging markets worldwide, boosted its annual profit projection after a good first quarter.