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A look at the day ahead from emerging markets chief
correspondent Karin Strohecker. The views expressed are her own.
Old ghosts came back to haunt markets as a surge in U.S.
virus numbers cast a shadow over the third-quarter recovery and
a fresh flare-up in U.S.-China trade tensions doused the stocks
rally.
Global stocks retreated on Tuesday following a reversal on
Wall Street late on Monday that saw the S&P slumping 1% after
briefly scaling post-pandemic highs and turning positive on the
year. Safe havens were back in demand, with the dollar gaining
U.S. Treasury and German bund yields slipping. Oil prices fell.
The risk-off move came after California joined Arizona and
Texas in re-introduced lockdown measures to curb the spread,
with bars, restaurants, cinemas and many other venues ordered to
shut their doors again. The three states - along with Florida -
are the new hotspots of the U.S. pandemic, although infections
are rising in most of the country. Australia and Japan also
ramped up measures as new clusters emerged.
The sombre news didn’t end there. Sino-U.S. tensions grew
after Washington rejected China's claims to offshore resources
in most of the South China Sea - a shift in tone that drew a
rebuke from Beijing.
Data from Singapore saw the trade-reliant economy plunged
into recession in the second quarter with a record 41.2% dive,
signalling a challenging outlook ahead beyond its borders. And
numbers from the UK showed the economy rose 1.8% in May and had
shrunk by 24% year-on-year – much worse than expected.
Even better-than-expected trade data from China showing the
recovery is on track thanks to a massive stimulus program could
not assuage frayed nerves. The rest of the day will bring some
more data for markets to chew on. Germany’s ZEW index is
expected to remain stuck in negative territory in July while
euro zone industrial production for May is expected to have
contracted again. The United States will release inflation data
later in the day and the Federal Reserve’s James Bullard will
discuss the economy and monetary policy to round the day off.
Second-quarter reporting gets underway in earnest with
JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo all due to report earnings
later today. Results are likely to show a 40% collapse in
earnings for S&P 500 companies alone, analysts calculate, with
investors anxious for some signs of optimism for the third
quarter.
But back to today’s frontline: European markets fell on
opening with London’s FTSE down 0.9%, Germany’s DAX slipping
1.2% and Paris’ CAC tumbling 1.4% tumble as investors look with
equal trepidation to Europe's earnings season. Shares in Swatch
Group gained 1.2% despite a net first-half amid expectations of
improving sales and profits in the second half. Lockdown stocks
enjoy some gains with Germany's Hellofresh up 5.2% in early
trade and Ocado rising 1.2% after the British online supermarket
said retail revenue soared 27% year-on-year in its first half to
May 31.
Norwegian oil firm Aker BP swung to a pretax profit in the
second quarter on record output and a partial reversal of
impairments from the previous quarter. Swiss pharma firm Roche
will pay up to $1.7 billion to Blueprint Medicines to help
develop and commercialise a new treatment for people with
so-called RET-altered cancers that have mutations that drive
tumour growth.
In currencies, the dollar strengthened while the safe-haven
yen and Swiss franc were treading water.
Across emerging markets, stocks pulled back 0.8% due to
losses in Asia, which saw heavyweights Hong Kong drop 1.2% and
China mainland stocks nearly matching those falls.
