EUROPEAN EQUITIES UPDATE: Europe on holiday, FTSE 100 flat, META/MSFT gain post-earnings

EUROPEAN MARKET CLOSURES

• Due to Labour Day across Europe, cash and derivatives markets are closed across Euronext services and those run by other European exchanges such as Deutsche Boerse, SIX and Nasdaq (Scandinavia closed ex-Copenhagen).


• On trade developments, the US is said to have reached out to China recently for tariff talks, according to Bloomberg citing an influential social media account. Elsewhere, US President Trump said tariffs have not kicked in yet and he knows China is doing very poorly right now, while he added that at a certain point, he hopes for a deal with China.

FTSE 100: -0.1%

• The UK’s FTSE 100 is one of the few indices in Europe which is open today. It has been quite busy in terms of earnings/newsflow, so to recap; Whitbread (+4.8%, Co. is cautiously optimistic and boosts its buyback programme), Rolls Royce (+2.4%, Co. noted it had a strong start to the year), Lloyds (-2.2%, slightly weaker-than-expected Q1 results but did highlight it expects no further charges related to motor finance). More broadly for Energy names, BP (-2.1%) and Shell (-1.4%) both sit towards the bottom of the index given the continued weakness in the crude complex.

US Equity Futures: ES +1.1%, NQ +1.5%, RTY +0.3%

• Futures are broadly in the green, with sentiment boosted after strong results from heavyweights Meta and Microsoft, which are currently higher by 5% and 7% respectively, in pre-market trade.


• To recap their results; Meta reported strong Q1 headline results, while Q2 guidance was in-line; Microsoft beat on both Sales and Profits driven by significant cloud growth and strong AI demand.


• The US Day sees the release of Challenger layoffs data for April, weekly jobless claims data (initial seen at 224k from 22k, while continuing are expected at 1.864mln from 1.841mln). The ISM manufacturing survey is likely to see the headline fall to 48.0 from 49.0, while Prices Paid are expected to rise.

01 May 2025 - 09:45- ForexEU Research- Source: Newsquawk