By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - European stock markets are expected to open marginally lower Tuesday, handing back some of the previous session’s strong gains, but losses are likely to be small as China’s trade data pointed to solid global demand.
At 2:05 AM ET (0605 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.1% lower, CAC 40 futures in France dropped 0.1% and the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. fell 0.2%.
Data released earlier Tuesday showed China’s exports rose at a faster-than-expected rate of 25.6% in August from a year earlier, from a 19.3.% gain in July. Economists had forecast growth of 17.1%, and the beat suggested resilience in global demand despite the headwinds caused by delta variant-driven Covid-19 outbreaks and high raw material prices.
The major indices in Europe posted gains of approaching 1% on Monday, helped by orders for German factory goods unexpectedly surging in July, hitting a post-reunification high.
The positive economic news continued Tuesday as German industrial production climbed 1.0% on the month in July, and attention will quickly turn to the release of the country’s closely-watched ZEW survey of economic sentiment for September for further guidance.
Investors will also look to the open on Wall Street later in the session, after Monday’s holiday, for further reaction in the wake of Friday’s disappointing September U.S. payrolls report, with just 235,000 jobs created compared with 750,000 expected.
In corporate news, Adecco (SIX:ADEN) will be in the spotlight after the Swiss staffing company announced plans to buy QAPA, France's second-largest provider of digital workforce solutions, for 65 million euros ($77 million).
Deutsche Telekom (OTC:DTEGY) also reported a share-swap deal with Softbank (OTC:SFTBY) to increase its stake in U.S. unit T-Mobile, while also selling its Dutch unit to a consortium of private equity houses Apax and Warburg Pincus for 5.1 billion euros ($6.05 billion).
Crude prices edged higher Tuesday, helped by the strong growth in China's exports, but gains are limited following Monday’s move by Saudi Arabia, the world’s top exporter, to sharply cut its prices for Asian buyers over the weekend.
Markets are also contending with the decision of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies, a group known as OPEC+, to continue adding crude to the global market, as well as the ongoing impact on U.S. supply from Hurricane Ida.
By 2:05 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.1% lower at $69.36 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 0.8% to $72.78.
Additionally, gold futures rose 0.8% to $1,818.95/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.1% higher at 1.1873.