By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - European stock markets are seen opening a little lower Tuesday, weighed by weakness on Wall Street as time begins to run out on a new U.S. stimulus package while European governments continue to tighten public health measures to stop the spread of Covid-19.
At 2:05 AM ET (0605 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.1% lower, CAC 40 futures in France dropped 0.7% and the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. fell 0.4%.
In the U.S., stocks closed lower Monday amid doubts the country’s lawmakers will reach a stimulus deal ahead of a Tuesday deadline imposed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.4%, the S&P 500 closed 1.6% lower and the Nasdaq Composite settled down 1.7%.
Pelosi’s statement late Monday that differences were narrowing in talks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin did briefly increase hopes that a deal could be passed before the presidential election. But most investors seem to think that the gap between the two parties is still too wide, and the bad feeling too deep seated, for a package to be agreed upon today.
Meanwhile, the number of global Covid-19 cases also continues its incessant rise, topping 40 million, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Ireland late on Monday declared a six-week lockdown of non-essential businesses in the latest indication that European authorities are struggling to bring the virus back under control.
Europe has been hardest hit with the second wave, but the number of new cases in the United States last week also rose 13% to more than 393,000, approaching levels last seen during the summer peak, according to a Reuters analysis.
Returning to Europe, exchange operator Euronext (PA:ENX) said its stock exchanges should open smoothly, after a software glitch caused its worst outage in two years on Monday that culminated in a failed closing auction.
In corporate news,UBS (NYSE:UBS) will be in the spotlight after the Swiss banking giant posted a doubling in its third-quarter profit, helped by a strong performance in investment banking as well as an unexpected rise in earnings for wealth management.
Oil prices weakened Tuesday on continued worries about the demand for oil going forward given the number of Covid-19 cases continues to mount, particularly in the large oil-consuming nations in Europe and the U.S..
Traders will be watching for crude and product inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute later on Tuesday, with analysts expecting U.S. oil and distillate stockpiles to have fallen in the latest week.
U.S. crude futures traded 0.4% lower at $40.91 a barrel, while the international benchmark Brent contract fell 0.4% to $42.46.
Elsewhere, gold futures fell 0.4% to $1,903.55/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.1% higher at 1.1775.