EUROPEAN EQUITIES UPDATE: Stocks grind higher and France shrugged off the vote of no confidence

STOXX 600: +0.2%

• Opened flat but started grinding higher shortly after the open despite relatively quiet newsflow but potentially as some of the optimism potentially emanating from the gains on Wall Street.


• Sentiment has not been noticeably hit by the political instability in France as PM Barnier lost the vote of no confidence yesterday (as expected) whilst reports already stated that French President Macron is looking to name a new PM by Saturday (as opposed to a general election).


• The European docket is light today with EZ Retail Sales the main scheduled release, whilst mixed Construction PMIs from across the Eurozone did little to spur price action at the time.

Sectors: Mostly Positive

• Sectors kicked off the session with a mild positive bias which later expanded as sentiment continued to improve shortly after the cash open.


• Banks take the top spot as French banks lead the gains following the aforementioned political updates from France.


• Travel & Leisure also resides as one of the winners as the recent selloff in oil prices underpin airliners, whilst Air France-KLM is lifted further amid an MoU with Saudi.


• Real Estate sits as one of the laggards with Sweden's SBB shares sliding some 5% after receiving a letter from funds intending to accelerate Eurobonds issues under the EMTN programme. Furthermore, UK homebuilders mostly see losses whilst Taylor Wimpey (-1.5%) saw a broker downgrade at JP Morgan.

European Indices: DAX 40 +0.4%, FTSE 100 +0.1%, CAC 40 +0.5%

• CAC 40 shrugged off the vote of no confidence which played out as expected, while President Macron is reported to be looking to announce a replacement before Saturday as opposed to taking the country to the polls.


• Mild underperformance in the FTSE 100 with oil majors capping gains following the slide in oil prices yesterday which was later attributed to a bank offloading a large volume of US oil futures contracts ahead of today's OPEC+ meeting.


• DAX 40 is lifted by Commerzbank (+2.8%) who noted they are open to any proposal from shareholders, but so far have had no proposal from UniCredit (UCG IM).

US Equity Futures: ES -0.1%, NQ -0.2%, YM U/C, RTY U/C

• Flat trade with a mild downward bias in the ES and NQ after yesterday's session on Wall Street in which US stocks gained and the major indices printed fresh record highs with the Nasdaq leading advances amid outperformance in Tech and Consumer Discretionary and Communication names.


• EU antitrust Chief says Google (GOOG) split still on the table, according to Bloomberg.

05 Dec 2024 - 10:20- EquitiesEU Research- Source: Newsquawk