European stock markets are expected to open marginally higher Wednesday, helped by strong Chinese services sector growth as the corporate earnings season continues.
At 2:05 AM ET (0605 GMT), the DAX Futures contract in Germany traded 0.1% higher, CAC 40 Futures in France climbed 0.4% and the FTSE 100 Futures contract in the U.K. rose 0.3%.
European equity markets received a positive handover from Asia Wednesday, helped by China’s services sector recording faster growth in July, something of a surprise given the concerns about the country’s economic recovery given the latest outbreak of Covid-19 cases.
Meanwhile, back in Europe, the second-quarter earnings season, which has been generally positive so far, continues.
Commerzbank recorded a second-quarter loss Wednesday as the German lender underwent a major restructuring, involving hundreds of branch closures and 10,000 job cuts. The bank also announced it would write off 200 million euros in the quarter, abandoning a project to outsource securities settlement to HSBC.
Results from the European banking sector have generally been positive this quarter with retail banking recovering as restrictions to combat the Covid-19 virus were lifted in most of the continent.
Earnings from the likes of Siemens Energy , Hugo Boss and Intesa Sanpaolo will also be in the spotlight Wednesday.
Elsewhere, French aerospace company Thales announced Wednesday that it was in advanced talks to sell its railway signaling business to Japan’s Hitachi for around $2 billion.
In economic news, the main focus will be on the July services PMI data for the Eurozone, as well as retail sales for June.
Elsewhere, oil prices stabilized Wednesday following consecutive down days on concerns that mounting Covid cases in both the U.S. and China, the two biggest consumers of crude in the world, will hit fuel demand.
Providing support was U.S Crude oil supply data from the American Petroleum Institute, released on Tuesday, which showed a draw of 879,000 barrels for the week ending Jul. 30.
At 2:05 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.3% lower at $70.33 a barrel, while the Brent contract fell 0.1% to $72.33.
The FTSE MIB climbed up by 0.48% to 25,475.82. In the cash markets, the DAX Germany was trading up 0.62% to 15,652.17. CAC 40 in France rose by 0.43% to 6,753.60 while the FTSE 100 in the U.K. were up by 0.47% to 7,139.35. ,at the time of writing.
