European stock markets open lower

European stock markets face a red opening on Monday.

IG expects an opening loss of 53 points for the German DAX Index, minus 27 points for the French CAC 40 and a drop of 52 points for the British FTSE 100 Index.

Stock markets in Europe entered the weekend positively on Friday. According to market analyst David Madden of CMC Markets, concerns about rising US interest rates and disappointing unemployment numbers in the US have faded into the background for some time. Madden warned that “these issues have not been resolved.”

It is not excluded that the bargain hunters raised the markets in Europe on Friday.

On the macroeconomic front, interest has been paid to buying data from the Euro-Zone, among other things. This showed a mixed picture, but the composite index of industry and services in the monetary union showed a slight improvement in the balance in February.

Industry in the Eurozone in particular has performed well. CMC’s Madden pointed to the sharp rise in the German Manufacturing PMI, which reached its highest level in three years at 60.6.

UK purchasing data was also better than January. For example, the services sector in the United Kingdom contracted less sharply in February.

Company news

Renault does not intend to pay a dividend for 2020, after a big book loss last year. In 2020, Renault posted a net loss of € 8.0 billion versus a lower loss of € 141 million in 2019, partly due to a negative contribution of € 5 billion from Nissan Motor partner. The stock fell 4.4 percent.

Danone’s performance is in line with revised forecasts in 2020. For 2021, Danone expects a tough first quarter, while growth should return in the second quarter. Danone is expected to return to profitable growth in the second half of the year. According to Danone, repeat operating margin will be in line with that in 2020 in 2021. Danone’s stock closed 2.2 percent higher.

Allianz posted higher operating profit in the fourth quarter of 2020, with all sectors contributing. Allianz wants to pay a dividend of 9.60 euros per share for 2020, which is comparable to that of 2019. For 2021, Allianz aims to achieve an operating profit of 12 billion euros, with a margin of 1 billion euros, either up or down. The operating profit for the whole year of 2020 was 10.75 billion euros. The stock rose 0.3 percent.

Euro Stoxx 50 3713.46 (+ 0.9%)
STOXX Europe 600 414,88 (+ 0,5%)
DAX 13.993,23 (+ 0,8%)
CAC 40 5,773.55 (+ 0.8%)
FTSE 100 6,624.02 (+ 0.1%)
SMI 10704.75 (-0.1%)
AEX 678,48 (+ 0,8%)
BEL 20 3837.49 (+ 1.6%)
FTSE MIB 23.136,31 (+ 0,9%)
IBEX 35 8.151,60 (+ 1,2%)

US stocks

Wall Street opens in red on Monday, according to US futures.

US stock markets remained close to home on Friday.

Investors are now seeing a number of reasons to be cautious, from the elevated stock market valuations to the pace of the global economic recovery.

“Investors are taking a breather,” said strategist Arthur Van Sloten of the Société Générale. “We think there is more upside potential.”

In Washington, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen defended the size of President Joe Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion support package to counter Corona. She said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday that she hoped to approve the package in the coming weeks. According to the latest reports, the House of Representatives will vote on the plan next week. The Senate will follow before March 14, when additional help for the unemployed ends.

On the macroeconomic front, it was found that the upcoming home sales in January rose faster than expected. In addition, the composite PMI for the US manufacturing and services sector increased from 58.7 in January to 58.8 in February.

The price of oil continued to decline. At a settlement of $ 59.24, a WTI barrel became 2.1 percent cheaper on Friday.

Robert Yoger, an analyst at Mizuho Securities, expects the price of WTI crude to decline somewhat after the recent rally and consolidate between $ 55 and $ 57.

Bitcoin rose more than 6 percent on Friday and was above $ 55,000, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk once again expressed positivity about the cryptocurrency. Additionally, the total market value of the coin is now over $ 1 trillion.

Company news

Dropbox shares fell 3.8 percent. The US cloud storage company generated more than half a billion dollars in revenue for the first time in the fourth quarter. However, the net result was a loss of approximately $ 346 million.

Applied Materials gained 5.3 percent. The semiconductor supplier performed above expectations in the last quarter. For the current quarter, Applied Materials expects adjusted earnings ranging from $ 1.44 to $ 1.56 per share. Sales must be between $ 5.19 billion and $ 5.59 billion. This means that expectations are much higher than analysts expected.

Der shares rose 9.6% after outperforming the US farm equipment maker in the quarter. Deere posted a profit of $ 3.87 a share, while the market had been expecting $ 2.16 a share. Sales increased from $ 7.73 billion to $ 9.11 billion, while the market was $ 7.21 billion. Deer also increased its annual sales forecast.

Apple rose 0.1 percent after Jefferies said, based on smartphone shipments data, that the iPhone gained market share in January versus Chinese brands in China.

IBM is considering selling Watson Health, people familiar with the situation say, as the new CEO takes steps to streamline the company and make it more competitive in cloud computing. The share fell 1.5 percent.

Facebook lost 2.9 percent. A US regulatory agency ruled on Thursday that the social media giant had taken steps to prevent it from collecting unauthorized data from customers, but failed to prevent this sensitive information from being shared.

Uber was denounced by a British judge regarding the legal status of its providers. The UK Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Uber drivers are not self-employed, but must be considered employees. This means that from now on they have to earn the minimum wage and have the right to vacation. The stock fell 1.0 percent.

Rocco shares rose 3.2 percent. The live streaming service posted 58 percent higher revenue in the last quarter. Roku has taken advantage of customers looking for more entertainment online while sitting at home due to the Corona outbreak.

S&P 500 Index 3.906.71 (-0.2%)
Dow Jones 31,494.32 (Fixed)
Nasdaq Composite 13.874.46 (+ 0.1%)

Asia

Asian stock markets were split on Monday, but overall without much results.

Nikkei 225 30.258.46 (+ 0.8%)
Shanghai Composite 3.692.48 (-0.1%)
Hang Seng 30,605.53 (-0.1%)

Evaluation

The EUR / USD was trading at 1.2119 Monday morning. When the US stock markets closed on Friday, the currency pair was still trading at 1.2119.

USD / JPY 10564
EUR / USD 1,2119 EUR
128.03 EUR / JPY

Macro agenda:
08:00 Homes Resale – Jan (NL)
10:00 IFO Business Confidence – Feb (Germany)
2:30 pm Chicago Activity Index – January (US)
15:00 Entrepreneurial Confidence – February (Contact)

Company news:
– There are no items on the agenda