LONDON: European shares climbed and Wall Street was set for a stronger open on Monday thanks to a surge in autos stocks and relief that Italy dodged a ratings downgrade.
Europe’s autos sector jumped 4.9 per cent, set for its strongest day since August 2015, after a report that China was considering halving the tax on car purchases in an attempt to boost demand for autos, which has been hurt by a trade war and slowing economic growth.
US stocks rose early Monday, bouncing from multi-month lows following a big IBM acquisition. About 12 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.8 per cent at 24,875.68.
Germany’s DAX jumped 2.1 per cent by 1310 GMT, boosted by carmakers BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen, while the leading index of Eurozone stocks rose 1.5 per cent.
Italy’s FTSE MIB led the market with a 2.4 per cent gain after Italian bond yields fell sharply to a one-week low following Standard & Poor’s decision to leave Italy’s sovereign rating unchanged, prompting relief there was no ratings downgrade.
This also pushed Italian bank stocks up as much as 4.5 per cent, set for their strongest day since Sept. 10.
Strong gains across Europe helped boost US stock futures back into the positive, with the Nasdaq futures up 1.4 per cent, S&P 500 futures up 1.1 per cent and Dow Jones futures up 0.7 per cent.
The MSCI world equity index, tracking shares in 47 countries, extended early gains to rise 0.4 per cent. The index is down 9.3 per cent so far this month and has shed $6.7 trillion in market capitalisation since its January peak.
Investors shrugged off news German Chancellor Angela Merkel would not seek re-election as party chairwoman, as she said she would serve her full term as chancellor until 2021. Analysts saw little likelihood of policy disruption.
Her decision, which followed bruising losses for her Christian Democrats in a regional election in Hesse, heralded the end of an era in which she has dominated European politics.
Despite gains on Monday, investors remained wary of betting on a turnaround in risk.
“The only way I can summarise the core sentiment among the European investors I met is something like ‘pretty grim’,” wrote Erik Nielsen, group chief economist at UniCredit, in a note to clients.
Overnight Asian stock trading was dampened by China’s blue-chip index which tumbled more than 3.3 per cent.
Chinese data underscored worries of a cooling economy as profit growth at its industrial firms slowed for the fifth consecutive month in September due to ebbing sales of raw materials and manufactured goods.
Global financial markets have been hit by negative factors from an intensifying China-U. S. trade conflict to tensions in Europe over Italy’s budget and tightening monetary policy.
Many indices are already in official correction territory amid heightened worries over corporate earnings and global growth.
“With the volatility of the last week or so, today’s stronger open to markets should not be seen as a sea change but more a pause for breath,” said Edward Park, investment director at Brooks Macdonald.
Analysts have been downgrading their estimates for European earnings at the fastest pace since February 2016, and weak results from internet giants Amazon and Alphabet hurt US stocks at the end of last week.
Bolsonaro win boosts emerging stocks
Emerging markets stocks built on early gains to climb 0.7 per cent in their first rise in five sessions after far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro won the runoff in Brazil’s presidential election.
Brazil-exposed stocks in Europe climbed on his win.
Blackrock’s Latin American Investment Trust London-listed shares gained 8.4 per cent while a Germany-listed iShares MSCI Brazil ETF climbed 5.8 per cent.
“Our initial assessment for the Bolsonaro administration is that it will have a pro-business stance, focused on enhancing the country’s competitiveness,” said UBS analysts.
Foreign exchange markets were relatively subdued with the dollar index leading, up 0.3 per cent.
The euro fell on the Merkel news, down 0.2 per cent at $1.1381. Sterling dipped 0.1 per cent, near a two-month trough of $1.2775 before Britain’s annual budget due later on Monday.
Finance minister Philip Hammond is likely to urge his divided Conservative Party to get behind the government’s push for a Brexit deal, or put at risk a long-awaited easing of austerity.
In commodities, oil prices dipped as investors priced in growing worries about Chinese growth. US crude fell 43 cents to $67.17 per barrel and Brent crude slid 44 cents to $77.18.
