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@thomsonreuters.com), Joice Alves (joice.alves@thomsonreuters.com) and
Julien Ponthus (julien.ponthus@thomsonreuters.com) in London and Stefano Rebaudo
(stefano.rebaudo@thomsonreuters.com) in Milan.
HOW LONG TO GET BACK TO PEAK PROFITS?(1128 GMT)
Since the coronavirus crisis started, hundreds of companies have announced they would cancel
or delay dividend payments as profits dropped in a locked down Europe.
UBS expects European earnings to fall as much as 33% this year and we will only get back to
levels seen pre-COVID-19 in 2025.
"By end 2021 earnings will still be down 16% from 2019 levels, but we suspect we will regain
2019 levels within 5 years," says UBS.
But the good news is: dividends tend to recover more quickly than earnings, the bank adds.
(Joice Alves)
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OPENING SNAPSHOT: MISERY AND NO COMPANY (0745 GMT)
Misery loves company. Alas, it's going to be a lonely day for British traders facing a most
gloomy session while continental Europe enjoys a long weekend.
The FTSE is currently down 2.5%, a bigger fall than what futures pointed to just a few hours
ago.
Heavyweight Shell is doing its part to drag the market down, losing 6.6% after yesterday's
double digit fall. The wounds from the major's historic dividend cut have clearly not healed,
with fresh downgrades from brokers this morning.
Easyjet is among the top losers, down 6%. Rival Ryanair announced it will ground more than
99% of its flights until July.
Miners are also heavily down with metal prices under pressure.
One of the only rays of light is RBS, up 2% after the British bank beat expectations thanks
partly to a 9% gain in core income from increased trading.
As you can see below, there's no point finger pointing a particular stock or sector as the
red is well spread overall.
(Julien Ponthus)
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ON THE RADAR: NO PLANES, NO HOUSING MARKET (0630 GMT)
Labour day makes for a very thin news flow obviously but there's still interesting news and
data coming out of the UK such as a warning by mortgage lender Nationwide that Britain's housing
market is grinding to a halt as a result of the lockdown.
Another illustration of the economic pain inflicted by the pandemic is London's Heathrow
Airport, traditionally the busiest in Europe, reporting that passenger numbers were expected to
be down by around 97% in April.
Not a surprise then to read that Ryanair will ground more than 99% of its flights until
July.
After quite a grim day for European banks, Royal Bank of Scotland announcing its profits
halved in the first quarter won't change investors' sentiment towards a sector which has emerged
as one of the top losers of the coronavirus crisis.
(Julien Ponthus)
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MORNING CALL: FTSE DOWN, CONTINENTAL EUROPE OFF (0546 GMT)
It's Labour day and with continental Europe off, this morning is about the FTSE which is
seen opening down about 1.5%.
With Asian markets closed too, there's not much of a guidance for what's to come in these
early hours in London but U.S. futures are trading in the red after Wall Street's dip yesterday.
There's a lot of "sell in May and go away" in the air however with, global stocks posting
stellar gains in April in the face of an excruciatingly bad macro picture and collapsing oil
prices.
Talking about which, Brent crude and U.S. are on the rise as major producers began output
cuts to offset the slump in demand triggered by the coronavirus pandemic and data showed U.S.
crude inventories grew less than expected.
(Julien Ponthus)
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(Reporting by Danilo Masoni, Joice Alves, Julien Ponthus and Thyagaraju Adinarayan)
