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European stocks edged higher on Thursday, showing the nervousness around coronavirus and trade tensions lingered after the heavy selling from the previous day.
The Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP, +0.19%, which slumped 2.8% on Wednesday, rose 0.5%.
Pharmaceuticals, including Roche ROG, +0.15% and AstraZeneca AZN, +0.80%, rose.
States reintroducing lockdown measures in the world’s largest economy, as well as companies including Apple AAPL, -1.76% shutting down stores, have worried investors.
“It seems that the ‘second wave’ has arrived even before the first wave subsided. The U.S. and, increasingly, Brazil, are the main hot spots, but the number of new cases is rising elsewhere in the world as well,” said Marshall Gittler, head of investment research at BDSwiss Group.
The airline sector was in focus. Lufthansa LHA, -2.08% surged 12% on news its top shareholder will vote in favor of a bailout package, while easyJet EZJ, -5.67% dropped 5% after selling £419 million of discounted shares.
Wirecard WDI, -64.22%, the German payments processor that last week revealed a €1.9 billion hole in its balance sheet, collapsed 65%. Wirecard said that its management board decided to file an application to open insolvency proceedings.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average YM00, -0.32% rose 10 points after the 710-point slump in the blue chips DJIA, -2.71% on Wednesday. Jobless claims and durable-goods orders data, as well as the final reading on first-quarter gross domestic product, are due.
