Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of European equity markets brought to you by Reuters
stocks reporters. You can share your thoughts Joice Alves (joice.alves@thomsonreuters.com) and
Julien Ponthus (julien.ponthus@thomsonreuters.com) in London and Stefano Rebaudo
(stefano.rebaudo@thomsonreuters.com) in Milan.
OPENING SNAPSHOT: NOKIA'S TECH BOOSTING BEAT BOOSTS STOCKS (0829 GMT)
The STOXX 600 is in the black this morning and that's pretty much thanks to Nokia's earning
beat which has sent the Finnish telecom network equipment maker up 10% and given a boost to the
Tech sector.
Yesterday's positive updates by Amazon, Apple and Google have reassured investors which has
very heavily relied on the performance of FAANGS to boost their portfolios in an otherwise
challenging market.
Among other big winners is BNP Paribas which also announced better-than-expected results.
The French bank is up 4% and also inspiring its peers: the banking index is up 1.1%.
A big player this morning is Belgium's Umicore which is down close to 10% after publishing
its trading update which despite beating expectations on core profits didn't go down that well
evidently.
In the telecom sector, Altice Europe shot up 8 after a number of brokers upgraded the
company.
Another hot sector this morning is real estate with Unibail and Klepierre, up 3.6% and 2.8%,
lifting the sector to 1.3%. Unlike the broader index, the sector is still set to make some gains
this month.
(Julien Ponthus)
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ON THE RADAR: BNP AND NOKIA BEATS, UNIVERSAL IPO (0635 GMT)
Another big earnings day which might help soothe some of yesterday's damage, particularly in
the banking sector with BNP Paribas beating consensus as fixed-income trading and debt
underwriting thrived during the COVID-19 crisis.
In Spain, Caixabank Q2 net profit rose 30% year-on-year due to lower restructuring costs
despite setting aside 755 million euros to offset the COVID-19 impact in the April to June
period.
It was less rosy for Banco Sabadell whose Q2 net profit fell 81% from the same period a year
ago after it set aside 635 million euros in provisions to anticipate the COVID-19 pandemic's
fallout. The net profit of 52 million euros came in short of the 74 millions euros analysts
polled by Reuters expected.
Reinsurance company Swiss Re said the $2.5 billion in claims and reserves related to
COVID-19 that it booked in the first half of the year would likely cover the bulk of its
pandemic-related losses.
Among beats this morning are Finnish telecom network equipment maker Nokia with unexpected
rise in underlying profit and Belgian materials technology Umicore. In Germany, Gea Group shares
are up 2.5% in early trade after the company raised ROCE guidance.
On the other hand, sales at Maybelline maker L'Oreal fell more sharply than expected and
Oakley and Ray-Ban eyewear maker EssilorLuxottica reported a 46% fall in Q2 revenues.
By what pre-market action is telling us at the moment, ProSiebenSat.1 trading update seems
to cheered as the German broadcaster says it is seeing first signs of a recovery in July.
A big announcement came from Vivendi which said it could list its most-prized asset,
Universal Music before 2023. The music unit, home to artist Taylor Swift, Drake and Lady Gaga,
was the only business unit within the group to report growth in the first half of this year.
Talking about IPOs, Bloomberg reported that SAP is working with Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan
Chase on its plans to list its Qualtrics unit in the U.S.
The London Stock Exchange said it may consider selling part or all of its Italian stock
exchange group to help get its planned $27 billion takeover of data and analytics group
Refinitiv approved.
(Julien Ponthus and Stefano Rebaudo)
*****
MORNING CALL: NO BOUNCE BACK (0527 GMT)
European futures are slightly up this morning but nothing on the scale that would constitute
a bounce back from yesterday's rout.
With rises comprised between 0.1% and 0.4%, the derivatives for EU blue chips, Frankfurt's
Dax and London's FTSE are in no position to make up the losses of the last session which wiped
out a month worth of gains.
The STOXX 600 is set to finish in the red in July, snapping three straight months of gains.
Dire economic data is weighing on sentiment and a good set of results by tech high-flyers
Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon were no game changers.
(Julien Ponthus)
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