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German Chancellor Angela Merkel wears a face mask as she leaves after a news conference on new coronavirus restrictions following consultations with the premiers of Germany’s 16 federal states at Chancellery in Berlin on October 28, 2020.
fabrizio bensch/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
European stocks stabilized Thursday after ending the previous session at a five-month low, with investors awaiting the latest European Central Bank decision, a flood of corporate earnings and a reading on how the world’s largest economy performed in the third quarter.
Down 3% on Wednesday, the Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP, +0.11% rose 0.3%.
The German DAX DAX, +0.31% rose 0.5%, and the French CAC 40 PX1, +0.03% and U.K. FTSE 100 UKX, +0.07% also edged up.
U.S. stock futures YM00, +0.55% NQ00, +0.97% climbed ahead of huge slate of earnings — including tech giants Alphabet GOOG, -5.46%, Amazon AMZN, -3.76%, Apple AAPL, -4.63% and Facebook FB, -5.51% after the closing bell. U.S. GDP is expected to show a 33% annualized jump in the third quarter.
France and Germany on Wednesday separately announced new one-month lockdowns to fight the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Economists at Berenberg say the French economy could contract as much as 4% in the fourth quarter, and the German economy could shrink by 1%.
“In Germany these restrictions are probably less severe than they could have been and probably sound more extreme than they are, but the direction of travel is going to wrong way with perhaps 5 months of the peak flu/cold/virus season still ahead of us, unlike the first wave when we only had a month or so of the normal peak period left when it struck,” said Jim Reid, a Deutsche Bank strategist.
Clients watch French President Emmanuel Macron’s evening televised address to the nation in a cafe in Bordeaux, southern France, on October 28, 2020, to announce new measures aimed at curbing the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
philippe lopez/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The European Central Bank is meeting Thursday, with expectations the central bank will suggest it’s open to more stimulus but wait until December to deliver it.
Royal Dutch Shell RDSA, +2.16% RDS.A, -4.50% jumped 4% as the oil giant’s adjusted earnings of $955 million came in well ahead of the $146 million expectation.
Nokia NOKIA, -17.00% NOK, -4.48% slumped 13% as the telecom equipment maker cut its profit forecast and introduced a new structure.
BT Group BT.A, +5.21% climbed 6% as the U.K. telecom lifted the low end of its profit forecast.
