Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of European equity markets brought to you by Reuters stocks reporters. You can share your thoughts Joice Alves (joice.alves@thomsonreuters.com) and Julien Ponthus (julien.ponthus@thomsonreuters.com) in London and Stefano Rebaudo (stefano.rebaudo@thomsonreuters.com) in Milan.
STREAMING SAVED THE VIDEO STAR, BUT NOT FROM COVID-19! (1208 GMT)
Interesting note from Citi which goes deep into the prospects of the music industry and streaming in the age of COVID-19.
While streaming is widely credited for saving an industry crippled by illegal downloads and recently helping labels back into growth, its potential is not unlimited and no magic cure against the pandemic.
One of Citi's key takeaway for the industry is that "if streaming subscription growth does slow, we expect the labels to extract more from distributors".
Another argument in favour of labels versus distributors such as Spotify if growth slows down is that "at prevailing multiples, music labels are less dependent on growth to justify current valuations".
Looking into the Spotify and Warner stocks, the analysts come to the conclusion that there's not that much upside and give them a "neutral" rating given the premium they currently enjoy.
"As such, we don’t find either stock particularly compelling at prevailing multiples.
More compelling are Sony, Vivendi and Tencent Music which are rated 'buy'."
Nothing much to do with stocks valuation, but here's an interesting chart from Citi research showing how physical music sales plummeted in the last 45 years and how vinyls are making a steady comeback:
(Julien Ponthus and Sujata Rao)
*****
SIGNS OF LIFE FROM EZ EMPLOYMENT, INFLATION? (1127 GMT)
June eurozone economic sentiment data showed the expected 'mechanical reaction' to the easing in lockdowns, staging the largest ever recorded rise. But this is not the point.
Eurozone industry expectations about demand surged to levels seen in the months before the crisis, but this didn't happened in services, which remained below those levels, a ING research note says.
Employment expectations improved in both industry and services recently, which means that employment could rise from late fall, along with selling price's, it adds.
These are good signs of a possible recovery, but they don't say how much lasting damage has been done from the virus, according to ING.
Oxford Economic on its part notes that "sentiment remains very subdued compared to before the pandemic, supporting our expectations of a record GDP contraction in Q2".
This initial sharp bounce back "will be followed by a much slower return to pre-pandemic levels," it adds.
Stocks keep hovering around the floating line after the data, supported by the fact that Europe has been doing better in controlling the virus, while a surge in cases in the U.S. worries because of its impact on the global economy.
(Stefano Rebaudo)
*****
CREDIT DYNAMICS STILL STRONG, BUT WITH EUROPE DIVIDE (0954 GMT)
Credit dynamics are more important than usual with the Covid-19 impact in place as they tell us if the economy is on the right track to a recovery and if there is a risk of a credit crunch.
Banks have huge amounts of liquidity at hands due to ECB and government measures, which are supposed to go to corporations and families.
We have good and bad signs from data collected by UBS.
Credit to non-financial corporations grew 7.3% year on year from 6.6% in April, "reflecting strong demand for emergency bridge loans supported by the government", while credit to households stayed unchanged at 3% in May, a UBS research note says.
The Europe divide is in place also in this matter. Credit growth was strong in France, up 8%, and in line with the Eurozone average of 5.3% in Austria, Finland, Germany and Ireland. While it underperformed in Spain, up 3.7% and Italy up 1.8%.
"We would regard a sharp widening in divergences between country-specific credit trends as a warning sign," UBS says.
(Stefano Rebaudo)
*****
OPENING SNAPSHOT: A SWIFT TURNAROUND! (0803 GMT)
Everything seemed to be pointing to stocks losing ground at the open this mornings but the trend swiftly became positive soon after the bell.
The STOXX 600 regained 0.2%, which was much better than what the futures were suggesting earlier this morning, falling up to 0.8%.
At the time of writing, the bounce-back faded and the pan-European index is back just very slightly in the red.
While there's no clear trigger for the switch in mood, there is a clear feeling that European stocks have the upper hand in the global stock market arena and that's helping at the open.
"The key is that Europe keeps reopenings safely in light of the low levels of virus transmission resurgence and far more manageable new cases", Stephen Innes, chief global market strategist at AxiCorp just told us.
"Investors sill have the reopening fever and money to spend, so they may now view EU stocks a more attractive investment in that regard", he added.
We also asked Michael Hewson at CMC Markets what was his take on the turnaround at the open and he argued that "some of the concerns about a second wave are premature".
Among individual stocks there's a lot of action around Wirecard which is up...160%! Traders reporting the shares are rising on a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung report that private equity and Worldline may be interested in buying parts of the company.
Another big mover is AMS up close to 7% with the reported EU go-ahead for the Osram deal boostng the shares.
Speaking of European shares having the upper hand, check out this story:
Investors warm to Europe as Biden lead, virus fears rattle Wall St
Anyhow, here's your opening snapshot:
(Julien Ponthus and Stefano Rebaudo)
*****
ON THE RADAR: AIRBUS, WIRECARD AND BUSINESS SENTIMENT (0645 GMT)
While there's not that much corporate news this morning, traders looking for market action can turn to Wirecard, which is up 30% in pre-market after the German company said on Saturday it would proceed with business activities after filing for insolvency.
That, of course, ain't much of a bounce back as the stock has lost about 99% of its value in less than two months!
Another stock under focus this morning is Airbus, losing some ground after its Chief Executive said he assumed a 40% drop in production over the next two years.
Traders also see AMS rising as much as 10% at the open after a Reuters exclusive on the European Union giving its go-ahead to its acquisition of German lighting group Osram.
Talking about M&A, Spain's Iberdrola raised its bid for Australian wind and solar firm Infigen Energy after Philippine conglomerate Ayala Corp hiked its offer.
Also, International Consolidated Airlines Group is reviewing its planned 1 billion euro acquisition of Air Europa because of the harsh economic climate caused by COVID-19, the CEO of IAG-owned Iberia was quoted on Sunday as saying.
In the beaten down euro zone banking sector, a German newspaper reported on Saturday that the board of Commerzbank's board would likely approve more branch closures and job cuts at an extraordinary meeting next week.
In Italy, the board of Monte dei Paschi di Siena is expected to meet on Monday to approve a plan to reduce its burden of bad loans.
Some macro could also spice things up a tad with notably the Euro Zone Economic Sentiment for June at 0900 GMT:
(Julien Ponthus and Stefano Rebaudo)
*****
MORNING CALL: GRIM VIRUS MILESTONES DENT SENTIMENT (0535 GMT)
There's clearly a risk-off feeling across markets as the week begins with two gloomy milestones: the death toll from COVID-19 surpassed half a million people and reported cases went through the 10 million mark.
Asian stocks took losses of about 1% to 2% on average with ongoing fears that the global pandemic could take a deeper toll on economic growth than expected.
European futures are down between 0.3% to 0.6% and their Wall Street peers are also trading slightly in the red.
The downbeat sentiment is also showing through oil prices which have slid for a second straight session.
(Julien Ponthus)
*****
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credit
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STREAMING SAVED THE VIDEO STAR, BUT NOT FROM COVID-19! (1208 GMT)
Interesting note from Citi which goes deep into the prospects of the music industry and streaming in the age of COVID-19.
While streaming is widely credited for saving an industry crippled by illegal downloads and recently helping labels back into growth, its potential is not unlimited and no magic cure against the pandemic.
One of Citi's key takeaway for the industry is that "if streaming subscription growth does slow, we expect the labels to extract more from distributors".
Another argument in favour of labels versus distributors such as Spotify if growth slows down is that "at prevailing multiples, music labels are less dependent on growth to justify current valuations".
Looking into the Spotify and Warner stocks, the analysts come to the conclusion that there's not that much upside and give them a "neutral" rating given the premium they currently enjoy.
"As such, we don’t find either stock particularly compelling at prevailing multiples.
More compelling are Sony, Vivendi and Tencent Music which are rated 'buy'."
Nothing much to do with stocks valuation, but here's an interesting chart from Citi research showing how physical music sales plummeted in the last 45 years and how vinyls are making a steady comeback:
(Julien Ponthus and Sujata Rao)
*****
SIGNS OF LIFE FROM EZ EMPLOYMENT, INFLATION? (1127 GMT)
June eurozone economic sentiment data showed the expected 'mechanical reaction' to the easing in lockdowns, staging the largest ever recorded rise. But this is not the point.
Eurozone industry expectations about demand surged to levels seen in the months before the crisis, but this didn't happened in services, which remained below those levels, a ING research note says.
Employment expectations improved in both industry and services recently, which means that employment could rise from late fall, along with selling price's, it adds.
These are good signs of a possible recovery, but they don't say how much lasting damage has been done from the virus, according to ING.
Oxford Economic on its part notes that "sentiment remains very subdued compared to before the pandemic, supporting our expectations of a record GDP contraction in Q2".
This initial sharp bounce back "will be followed by a much slower return to pre-pandemic levels," it adds.
Stocks keep hovering around the floating line after the data, supported by the fact that Europe has been doing better in controlling the virus, while a surge in cases in the U.S. worries because of its impact on the global economy.
(Stefano Rebaudo)
*****
CREDIT DYNAMICS STILL STRONG, BUT WITH EUROPE DIVIDE (0954 GMT)
Credit dynamics are more important than usual with the Covid-19 impact in place as they tell us if the economy is on the right track to a recovery and if there is a risk of a credit crunch.
Banks have huge amounts of liquidity at hands due to ECB and government measures, which are supposed to go to corporations and families.
We have good and bad signs from data collected by UBS.
Credit to non-financial corporations grew 7.3% year on year from 6.6% in April, "reflecting strong demand for emergency bridge loans supported by the government", while credit to households stayed unchanged at 3% in May, a UBS research note says.
The Europe divide is in place also in this matter. Credit growth was strong in France, up 8%, and in line with the Eurozone average of 5.3% in Austria, Finland, Germany and Ireland. While it underperformed in Spain, up 3.7% and Italy up 1.8%.
"We would regard a sharp widening in divergences between country-specific credit trends as a warning sign," UBS says.
(Stefano Rebaudo)
*****
OPENING SNAPSHOT: A SWIFT TURNAROUND! (0803 GMT)
Everything seemed to be pointing to stocks losing ground at the open this mornings but the trend swiftly became positive soon after the bell.
The STOXX 600 regained 0.2%, which was much better than what the futures were suggesting earlier this morning, falling up to 0.8%.
At the time of writing, the bounce-back faded and the pan-European index is back just very slightly in the red.
While there's no clear trigger for the switch in mood, there is a clear feeling that European stocks have the upper hand in the global stock market arena and that's helping at the open.
"The key is that Europe keeps reopenings safely in light of the low levels of virus transmission resurgence and far more manageable new cases", Stephen Innes, chief global market strategist at AxiCorp just told us.
"Investors sill have the reopening fever and money to spend, so they may now view EU stocks a more attractive investment in that regard", he added.
We also asked Michael Hewson at CMC Markets what was his take on the turnaround at the open and he argued that "some of the concerns about a second wave are premature".
Among individual stocks there's a lot of action around Wirecard which is up...160%! Traders reporting the shares are rising on a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung report that private equity and Worldline may be interested in buying parts of the company.
Another big mover is AMS up close to 7% with the reported EU go-ahead for the Osram deal boostng the shares.
Speaking of European shares having the upper hand, check out this story:
Investors warm to Europe as Biden lead, virus fears rattle Wall St
Anyhow, here's your opening snapshot:
(Julien Ponthus and Stefano Rebaudo)
*****
ON THE RADAR: AIRBUS, WIRECARD AND BUSINESS SENTIMENT (0645 GMT)
While there's not that much corporate news this morning, traders looking for market action can turn to Wirecard, which is up 30% in pre-market after the German company said on Saturday it would proceed with business activities after filing for insolvency.
That, of course, ain't much of a bounce back as the stock has lost about 99% of its value in less than two months!
Another stock under focus this morning is Airbus, losing some ground after its Chief Executive said he assumed a 40% drop in production over the next two years.
Traders also see AMS rising as much as 10% at the open after a Reuters exclusive on the European Union giving its go-ahead to its acquisition of German lighting group Osram.
Talking about M&A, Spain's Iberdrola raised its bid for Australian wind and solar firm Infigen Energy after Philippine conglomerate Ayala Corp hiked its offer.
Also, International Consolidated Airlines Group is reviewing its planned 1 billion euro acquisition of Air Europa because of the harsh economic climate caused by COVID-19, the CEO of IAG-owned Iberia was quoted on Sunday as saying.
In the beaten down euro zone banking sector, a German newspaper reported on Saturday that the board of Commerzbank's board would likely approve more branch closures and job cuts at an extraordinary meeting next week.
In Italy, the board of Monte dei Paschi di Siena is expected to meet on Monday to approve a plan to reduce its burden of bad loans.
Some macro could also spice things up a tad with notably the Euro Zone Economic Sentiment for June at 0900 GMT:
(Julien Ponthus and Stefano Rebaudo)
*****
MORNING CALL: GRIM VIRUS MILESTONES DENT SENTIMENT (0535 GMT)
There's clearly a risk-off feeling across markets as the week begins with two gloomy milestones: the death toll from COVID-19 surpassed half a million people and reported cases went through the 10 million mark.
Asian stocks took losses of about 1% to 2% on average with ongoing fears that the global pandemic could take a deeper toll on economic growth than expected.
European futures are down between 0.3% to 0.6% and their Wall Street peers are also trading slightly in the red.
The downbeat sentiment is also showing through oil prices which have slid for a second straight session.
(Julien Ponthus)
*****
/><^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
sqdf
sqdf
credit
reaction
sqdf
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