Last checked at 
* STOXX 600 on record high, up 0.6%
* Basic materials stock index lead gains, up 1.8%
* Traders wait for Scottish election results
* U.S. jobs in focus
* Wall Street futures tick up
May 7 - Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of
markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your
thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com
FOMO VERSUS 'AS GOOD AS IT GETS' TUG OF WAR (1201 GMT)
Looking at how stocks have performed lately (see blog post
below), it seems that the earnings season has backed the current
record highs but has not provided fuel to go much beyond that.
For many investors, that means the main takeaway is that
this is actually as good as it gets, at least in the short-term.
Against this backdrop, UniCredit strategists believe that
"the tug-of-war between a fear of missing out and profit taking
seems set to continue" and that "trading within a broad sideways
range is highly likely in the coming months".
Longer term though, the team believes the recovery will
continue gaining strength and that therefore, "any near-term
setback will be a buying opportunity".
Among interesting targets, they see stocks that have
announced buybacks as possible opportunities as the Solactive EU
buyback index shows an outperformance over the STOXX 600
benchmark since last October:
(Julien Ponthus)
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RECORD BEATS, RECORD FLOPS (1127 GMT)
The STOXX 600 is still cruising on record highs as we get
into midday trading and it's pretty safe to say that it has this
stellar earnings season to thank for that.
Rounding up in a note what's to be made of Q1 so far, Morgan
Stanley analysts make two points.
1) Record pace of earnings beats and record earnings
revisions
2) Record negative market reaction to said beats...
Here's how they encapsulate the current trend: "While the
underlying results seen during the 1Q reporting season have been
their best ever relative to consensus expectations, clearly the
market had already priced in much of this strength, with price
action on the day of results displaying a record negative skew".
It's actually pretty striking on their chart:
(Julien Ponthus)
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VACCINE: EUROPE CATCHES UP TO U.S. PACE (1028 GMT)
Europe is late, but at last it caught up to the U.S. levels
in terms of vaccination pace, while the emerging markets are
still lagging.
According to the UBS vaccine tracker, the EU27 is now
basically vaccinating at the pace of two months ago in the
United States, which reached a saturation point recently.
Furthermore, European major countries' vaccination campaign
is now in line with governments targets (see chart below).
The situation is different for emerging markets.
India's pace is consistent with vaccinating only 21.7% of
the population by year-end, while China's pace continued to pick
up (+7.4pp to 64.2% by year-end).
Brazil also declined last week, but supplies in May are
about to surge, and, thanks to its favourable age structure, it
is likely to reach effective herd immunity by October.
(Stefano Rebaudo)
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HOW LONG WILL PENT-UP DEMAND LAST? (0917 GMT)
It’s probably not such a thorough test for post-pandemic
economic growth and inflation, but high-frequency data can give
interesting clues about the expected recovery.
Over the next few months, the market “focus will
increasingly shift to what the steady-state in the post-COVID
economy will look like,” according to Deutsche Bank, which
highlights data from two countries that have already gone
through the boom phase of the re-opening.
After a few weeks of a solid rebound in Israel, restaurant
spending is back to where it was when the lockdowns started (see
chart below).
Retail sales in Australia stabilized after a short initial
boom (see chart below).
Interestingly, the state that got hit harder with COVID,
Victoria, saw the biggest subsequent boom but equally the most
significant reversal.
(Stefano Rebaudo)
*****
EUROPEAN STOCKS RISE ON RESULTS, M&A (0733 GMT)
European stocks are slightly higher on some solid earnings
and M&A expectations, ahead of key employment U.S. data due this
afternoon.
The Stoxx 600 index is up 0.3% with oil and gas
stock index leading gains up 0.7% on oil prices recovery
on buoyant economic data from China and the U.S.
Meggitt shares soar 14% to March 2020 highs, with
traders citing a report that Woodward is looking at the
U.K. firm for a potential M&A deal.
Shares in Adidas <ADSGn.de are up around 7% after the
company raised its 2021 sales outlook, while Siemens shares rise
2% after the company upped its guidance while warning about
tightening supply chain.
British Airways-owner IAG is down 0.2% as the
company remained cautious on short-term flying recovery.
The market overnight seemed to like comments from Fed
governor Raphael Bostic who said a million or more jobs were
likely created in April would not be enough to push the Fed to
begin discussing scaling back its asset purchases.
According to a Reuters poll, economists expect 978,000 new
U.S. jobs for April, but Deutsche Bank expects 1.275 million.
(Stefano Rebaudo)
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TAPERING THE TAPER TALK (0708 GMT)
A million or more jobs added in April won't be enough to
trigger the Fed to ponder its bond purchases is what Atlanta
Fed's President Raphael Bostic said on Thursday, but markets
appear to be wanting to front run any potential tapering with
the S&P 500 stopping just shy of record highs.
The non-farm payrolls report due later today is likely to
set the tone for markets - especially U.S. Treasuries, which
traded in a tight range this week. Estimates for jobs created in
April range widely between 700,000 and more than 2 million.
The reflation trade has been the only game in town as
vaccinations gather pace and that's also supporting the red-hot
rally in commodities that shows no signs of abating with oil,
iron ore and copper all rising sharply. And those markets will
be underpinned by China extending its impressive trade
performance in April with exports jumping a third and import
growth at a decade high.
In more good news, earnings season is continuing to surprise
on the upside in Europe and the United States. German sportswear
company Adidas said it expects strong demand for its
products despite supply chain issues and lockdowns in Europe.
Similarly, Siemens raised its outlook even as it
flagged tightening supply chains.
Those strong earnings prints are set help Europe's benchmark
STOXX 600 index to open at record highs. U.S. stock
futures are also ticking higher.
Elsewhere, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency Ether
hit yet another record high, taking year-to-date
gains to over 385%, as investors diverted focus from its main
rival bitcoin.
Key developments that should provide more direction to
markets on Friday:
- Credit Agricole posts 64% jump in profits
- BMW confirms outlook, but says rest of 2021 to be volatile
- British Airways cautious on short term flying recovery
- ECB President Christine Lagarde speaks at 1000 GMT
- US non-farm payrolls data 1230 GMT
- US earnings: Cigna, Fluor
(Thyagaraju Adinarayan)
EUROPE IN THE BLACK BOOSTED BY STRONG DATA (0528 GMT)
European stock futures are well in the black as a batch of
economic data worldwide boosted expectations that a solid
economic recovery is already underway.
Wall Street rallied overnight after the number of Americans
filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell below 500,000
last week for the first since the pandemic started. At the same
time, China stocks rose after the country's export growth
unexpectedly accelerated in April.
Today's focus is on U.S. monthly non-farm payroll report for
further clues on the labour market and potentially the U.S. Fed
stance on monetary policy.
(Stefano Rebaudo)
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