Astrazeneca Share News (AZN)

* Bourses fall in virus worries
* Europe's bank at lowest since 2009

Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of European equity markets brought to you by Reuters
stocks reporters. You can share your thoughts with Thyagaraju Adinarayan
(thyagaraju.adinarayan@tr.com), Joice Alves (joice.alves@tr.com), Julien Ponthus
(julien.ponthus@tr.com) in London.


RISING EURO DELIVERS DOUBLE WHAMMY FOR STOXXE (1627 GMT)
The rising euro - +0.7% against the dollar today - is clearly not helping euro zone blue
chips which are typically big exporters.
The currency has actually been on fire since the coronavirus started shaking global market
and the dollar sunk after the Fed cut.
It went from $1.08 on Feb. 20 to $1.13 today.
As you can see below, it's doesn't look like it's helping much, quite on the contrary:


(Julien Ponthus and Thyagaraju Adinarayan)
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STOCK PICKING TIPS (1540 GMT)
Here are some stock picking tip from BNP Paribas' Edmund Shing.
"You will find that stocks that are sensitive to bonds, relatively speaking are caught up
better than the market overall. Now the stocks that tend to be more bond sensitive are
defensive, and tend to be located in sectors like healthcare and utilities for instance," he
told us in an interview.
"That is often because they have lots of debt," he adds.
Shing also gives hints on how to pick the best stocks in the coronavirus era, beyond the big
utilities names.
"It's very difficult: One strategy you can employ is looking for companies that are falling
off," he says, if you don't find an explanation - like a profit warning or something
fundamentally wrong - this company may be your pick.
Smaller companies often suffer when there is a big sell-off, because in panic selling
investors rush to take some profits off the table, but "in fact the companies that suffer the
sharpest fall sometimes can be those which have very strong fundamentals, which explain why they
had such good performance before the crisis".
"When fundamentals and valuations are diverging, there is a chance that at some point the
price will shoot up, and prices at some point rejoins fundamentals".
(Joice Alves)
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WHAT A RIDE FOR UTILITIES! (1411 GMT)
The sector is losing some ground today, although it's still outperforming the others in the
daily coronavirus sell-off we've been seeing of late in Europe. Year-to-date it has been
a darling among investors surviving the meltdown in markets.


European utilities have delivered a double-digit return so far this year and there is more
to that than the bond yield, DB's James Brand writes. Here is his guess why:
- The turn in earnings cycle and return to growth
- Enthusiasm for ESG
- The coronavirus driven rotation into defensives
"Interestingly our correlation analysis suggests that this could be justified just by the
drop in bond yields. However, our view is that robust medium-term earnings growth and long-term
investment opportunities related to ESG may be better reasons to remain bullish," Brand adds.

(Joice Alves)
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CARNAGE! (1323 GMT)
Are markets losing it? Bear market territory is not too far away for many bourses. The
pan-European STOXX 600 index has now fallen close to 16% from record highs. Wall Street
meanwhile is getting ready for a 3.2% drop.
"We think that equities will need more visibility if they are to manage to build a viable
bottom or to be able to tap into the power afforded by a reasonable sense of relief – for
example, as a result of easing in the momentum of new coronavirus cases also outside China,"
Christian Stocker at UniCredit says.




(Thyagaraju Adinarayan)
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EUROPE'S BANKS AT LOWEST SINCE 2009 (1110 GMT)
European banks are down close to 4% and have now hit their lowest since 2009 as the
coronavirus scare cuts deeper into global markets.
We're past bear territory with a fall of about 25% since February.
Seems there's a combination of straight recession fears (with all that means in terms of
toxic NPLs quickly building up) and expectations of another ECB cut which would bite hard into
margins again.
Germany's 10-y govt bond yield fell to -0.740%, which is very, very close to its record low
of -0.743 of September 2019.
"The situation of the European banking sector is completely different from what it was in
2009", Jerome Legras, head of research at Axiom Alternative Investments just told us.
"There’s the psychological aspect of hitting the same level but I’m not more worried about
their solvency than I was three weeks ago", he added.
"Profitability is a different story though..."

Take a look:


(Joice Alves and Julien Ponthus)
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OPENING SNAPSHOT: NOT THE TIME FOR TRAVEL & LEISURE (0823 GMT)
European bourses open in negative territory as coronavirus fears continue to drag down the
stock market.
The pan European index is on track for its third straight day of declines and
needless to say the travel and leisure space is lagging behind all the other sectors,
down more than 3%.
In terms of single stocks, Italy's Prysmian started the day among the top movers,
down almost 10%, after it warned that core profit will not grow this year, blaming trade
tensions, higher tariffs and the coronavirus outbreak.
Capita's capitulation continues as brokers cut price targets after the company's
update yesterday sent shares down 40%.

(Joice Alves)
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STOCKS TO WATCH: INFINEON, AIRBUS, ESSILORLUXOTTICA (0745 GMT)
Futures point to another blow for European bourses with 2% plus declines across the board as
coronavirus anxiety continues to grip investors.
In the corporate world, Infineon in focus after a Bloomberg reported that
Washington recommended Trump to block the German chipmaker's proposed $10 billion deal to buy
Cypress Semiconductor as it poses a security risk.
Airbus shares could take a hit as it got zero orders for February due to
coronavirus, but worth remembering that the recent sell-off has likely priced-in most of the bad
news.
EssilorLuxottica is the other name to watch out for after the company said it
expects is first-half revenues to be slower (I'd let you guess the why here).
Non-virus news: British pharma AstraZeneca seen down 2% after its combination
treatment for a form of bladder cancer failed to meet the main goal.

(Thyagaraju Adinarayan)
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ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER SELL-OFF (0637 GMT)
Stocks are seen opening sharply lower again today on top of yesterday's ugly sell-off that
took bank stocks into bear market territory along with autos, travel & leisure and oil & gas.
The number of global coronavirus cases is fast approaching the 100k mark with fears of a
massive economic damage sending shivers down investors' spine.
Financial spreadbetters IG expect London's FTSE to open 114 points lower at 6,592,
Frankfurt's DAX to open 255 points lower at 11,690 and Paris' CAC to open 116 points lower at
5,246.
"Markets have shifted from pricing temporary China weakness to a more protracted global
event, which will see a good chunk of global GDP go up in smoke," said Stephen Innes, chief
market strategist at AxiCorp.

(Thyagaraju Adinarayan)
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(Reporting by Joice Alves, Julien Ponthus and Thyagaraju Adinarayan)