European equities are trading significantly higher today with all the region’s benchmarks in green territory, offsetting losses registered earlier this week. The trend seems to be global as Asian shares rose overnight, except in China where markets remain closed, and US futures point to a solid open. This renewed appetite for risky assets has been driven by investors welcoming the set of measures from China where the government has locked down 30m people to prevent the coronavirus from spreading as the death toll continues to rise.
Furthermore, stock prices have also been boosted by the latest dovish words from ECB Chairman Lagarde who kept rates unchanged but also said that although inflation inside eurozone has ticked up slightly, it isn’t enough to change the current accommodative monetary policy. The volatility remains low on EU stocks as investors are cautious with benchmarks trading close to their all-time highs.
Photo by Mauro Sbicego.
However, the batch of recent reassuring data pointing to a global growth recovery combined with the current solid earnings reports from companies should give a further boost to market sentiment.
Banking and miners are among the top movers in Europe today with shares from these sectors driving benchmarks higher. The best performance comes from Frankfurt as the DAX-30 Index is now trading close to 13,600pts following a solid rebound above 13,485pts in early trading. The next upward targets after 13,600pts are near 13,635pts and 13,705pts by extension.
