Newsquawk Daily European Equity Opening News - 27th March 2025

27th March 2025

ASIA

APAC stocks were ultimately mixed with cautiousness seen after Trump's latest tariff salvo in which he announced the US is to impose 25% tariffs on all cars made outside of the US effective on April 2nd and reiterated that reciprocal tariffs are also set for next week but stated they will be lenient, and in many cases, tariffs will be less than the tariffs charged on the US. ASX 200 declined with the index dragged lower by underperformance in tech, real estate and financials but with further downside stemmed by resilience in utilities and the commodity-related sectors. Nikkei 225 slipped back beneath the 38,000 level with automakers among the worst hit following Trump's 25% auto tariff announcement. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp kept afloat with outperformance in Hong Kong amid a slew of earnings releases and after US President Trump also suggested he may give China a little reduction in tariffs to get a TikTok deal done, while China's Vice Premier vowed to push forward reforms to help high-quality economic growth in a speech at the Boao Forum.

SK Hynix (000660 KS) - Co. said some customers bring forward chip orders due to tariffs; expects explosive growth in HBM chip demand this year. (Newswires)

EUROPEAN CLOSES

CLOSES: DAX: -1.14% at 22,847, FTSE 100: +0.30% at 8,690, CAC 40: -0.96% at 8,031, Euro Stoxx 50: -1.15% at 5,412, AEX: -0.42% at 917, IBEX 35: -0.43% at 13,426, FTSE MIB: -0.83% at 39,058, SMI: -0.58% at 12,955, PSI: +0.80% at 6,887

SECTORS: Energy 1.66%, Utilities 0.55%, Telecoms 0.01%, Consumer Stpl -0.13%, Financials -0.50%, Materials -0.77%, Consumer Disc -0.89%, Industrials -0.91%, Healthcare -1.47%, IT -2.59%

FTSE 100

Ex-Dividends - British American Tobacco (BATS LN), Segro (SGRO LN), Standard Chartered (STAN LN), Smith & Nephew (SN/ LN), Taylor Wimpey (TW/ LN), Melrose (MRO LN), Schroders (SDR LN), M&G (MNG LN), Prudential (PRU LN), and Games Workshop (GAW LN), will trade without entitlement to their latest dividend payouts. (dividenddata)

Rio Tinto (RIO LN) - Rio Tinto's 2024 Taxes and Royalties Paid Report reveals a total of USD 8.4bln paid globally, slightly down from USD 8.5bln in 2023. The company paid USD 6.3bln in Australia, including USD 3.7bln in corporate taxes. Other significant contributions were made in Chile, Canada, Mongolia, and the US. Over the past decade, Rio Tinto has paid USD 77.3bln in taxes and royalties globally, with over 78% in Australia.

OTHER UK COMPANIES

BROKER MOVES

DAX

Bayer (BAYN GY) - Elliott Management explored private equity interest in Bayer’s consumer health unit while considering renewed activist pressure, FT reports. Bayer, amid a major restructuring, is unlikely to sell soon, FT said. Elliott previously pushed for change, citing undervaluation. (FT)

Volkswagen (VOW3 GY) - Co. reportedly mulling options including listing for MAN energy unit, according to Bloomberg. (Newswires)

OTHER GERMAN COMPANIES

ProSiebenSat.1 (PSM GY) - Shares seen opening -9% after MFE launched a voluntary public takeover of Co, according to Reuters. (Newswires)

BROKER MOVES

BASF (BAS GY) downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JPMorgan

Commerzbank (CBK GY) reinstated with Neutral at Goldman Sachs

CAC

OTHER FRENCH COMPANIES

BROKER MOVES

PAN EUROPE

US Tariffs - US President Trump announced US is to impose 25% tariffs on all cars not made in the US, while he said they will be doing tariffs on pharmaceuticals and tariffs on lumber. Trump stated auto tariffs are going into effect on April 2nd and will start being collected on April 3rd, as well as noted that he will have a news conference on April 2nd which is the real Liberation Day. Furthermore, reciprocal tariffs on April 2nd will be on all tariffs but they will be lenient and in many cases, the tariffs will be less than the tariff charged on the US. EUʼs top trade negotiator Sefcovic expects US President Trump to hit the bloc with tariffs of about 20% next week, while it was reported that a White House official said “no final decisions have been made” on what the reciprocal tariff rates will be for US trading partners, according to FT. EU expects US President Trump to set a flat, double-digit tariff on April 2nd and it was suggested that the tariff rate applied to the EU could be as high as 20% or 25%, according to Politico citing two diplomats. (Newswires) Daimler Trucks (DTG GY), BMW (BMW GY), Continental (CON GY) seen opening lower by 1.7-2.4%.

Copper Stocks - Citi turns near-term bearish on ex-US copper pricing, revising 0–3 month price target to USD 9,500/ton from USD 10,000/ton and sees a 25% US copper import tariff imposed in Q2 2025. Citi sees copper easing to an average of USD 8,800/ton through H2 2025. Citi thinks Section 232 tariffs on US copper imports at 25% could be announced as soon as April and implemented by May. (Newswires)

Oil Stocks - European oil traders are mulling when to re-enter Russia’s markets with some predicting Moscow will seek to maintain increased control of its oil exports even if Western sanctions are lifted, according to FT. (FT)

Post Italiane (PST IM) - Co. proposes a buyback plan of 2.6mln shares worth EUR 50mln. (Newswires)

BROKER MOVES

ING (INGA NA) upgraded to Buy at Goldman Sachs

UniCredit (UCG IM) reinstated with Buy at Goldman Sachs

SMI

OTHER SWISS COMPANIES

BROKER MOVES

SCANDINAVIA

BROKER MOVES

US

CLOSES: SPX -1.12% at 5,712, NDX -1.83% at 19,917, DJI -0.31% at 42,455, RUT -1.03% at 2,074

SECTORS: Technology -2.46%, Communication Services -2.04%, Consumer Discretionary -1.67%, Industrials -0.65%, Health -0.37%, Financials -0.24%, Materials +0.18%, Real Estate +0.51%, Energy +0.60%, Utilities +0.70%, Consumer Staples +1.42%.

OpenAI - Co. is said to be close to finalising a USD 40bln funding round spear-headed by SoftBank Group (9984 JT), according to Bloomberg sources. (Bloomberg)

NVIDIA (NVDA) - Co. reportedly nears a deal to buy a GPU reseller for several hundred million dollars, according to The Information. "NVIDIA is in advanced talks to buy Lepton AI, a two-year-old startup that rents out servers powered by NVIDIA’s artificial intelligence chips, in a deal worth several hundred million dollars, according to a person close to the company." The startup Nvidia is looking to buy is part of a class of AI inference providers. NVIDIA has been boosting its cloud and enterprise software products for AI app developers. (Newswires)

Tesla (TSLA) - CEO Musk says tariff impact on Tesla is still significant. (Newswires)

27 Mar 2025 - 06:55- Research Sheet- Source: Newsquawk