The markets opened on a high, today on Monday, and global market stocks reported a rise, as the earning expectations beat the world economic fears, especially those associated with China. European shares were higher, after Asian markets dropped. Moreover, the corporate earnings outlook was better and crude prices dropped due to supply concerns.
As the world prepared for another week on Monday, European stock markets opened higher as the expectations regarding the forthcoming earnings were better than the trade conflicts going on between Washington and Beijing.
Data revealed that factory production growth and China’s economy have both slowed down at the start of the week and investors are still worried. Investors feel that there might be further issues for the economy and this will hurt the economy more.
However, despite this, European shares were mostly higher but the gains seemed marginal. The DAX index of Germany was the biggest riser for the day, as it was up by half a percent before it gave up most of the gains. The CAC 40 of France increased by 0.16%, whereas the STOXX 600 rose by 0.23%.
For today, the worst performing sectors were autos and the basic resources. Both of them relied on the solid growth in China but amongst merger speculations, the overall effect was outweighed. Moreover, the iShares MSCI World (NYSE:URTH) that tracks 47 countries, also remained flat for the day.
A strategist at Peel Hunt, Ian Williams, while commenting on the growth of stocks, said that there was nothing-extra ordinary about the numbers and they were not way out of line. Moreover, he added further that the slower activity members were also ‘kind of priced in’.
US banks started with their earnings season last week on Friday and this week, many European countries also reported their numbers for the 2nd quarter.
Mislav Matejka, the equity strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM), said that the earnings results in the Europe and US both will be strong and they will beat expectations by about 4-5%.
On Friday, strong profits from the energy and industrial firms underpinned the gains on Wall Street and therefore, S&P 500 e-mini futures reported a rise of 0.1% on Monday.
Latest data by China reveals that the economy grew by 6.7% during the 2nd quarter of the year but this was a slight decline from the 6.8% growth in the last three quarters.
Moreover, GDP figures were also quite in line with the market expectations but new data revealed that there was slower than expected growth in the country’s industrial output which showed slow momentum and the call for the government to take strong measures to assist growth. In retrospect, the MSCI index- the biggest and broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside of Japan dropped by 0.36%.
On the other hand, in the commodity market, the US crude dropped by 0.76%, settling at $70.47 per barrel whereas Brent crude dropped by 0.36%, as it settled at $75.06 a barrel. Gold prices also recovered from hitting their 7 month low because of a weak dollar.