EU Market Open: Japanese Stocks Gain Offsetting China Data

In Asia Japanese stocks led Asian stocks to gains on Monday, helping to offset soft Chinese data. The Nikkei index rose 1% to 16,583.04. Shanghai stocks initially fell on the downbeat China data released over the weekend, but recovered to trade 0.3% higher after the country’s securities regulator denied media reports it was cracking down on fundraising and mergers and acquisitions in certain sectors.

Oil prices jumped over 1% on Monday after long-time bear Goldman Sachs said the market had ended almost two years of oversupply following global oil disruptions and flipped to a deficit. International Brent crude futures were trading at $48.50 per barrel, up 1.4%, from their last settlement. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 1.5%, at $46.89 a barrel.

In the US, stocks fell on Friday as a decline in oil prices added to pressure from consumer companies after gloomy earnings reports from Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) and J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP) overshadowed upbeat April retail sales data. The S&P 500 had lost 0.85% to 2,046.66. Nordstrom fell 13.60% and J.C. Penney Co Inc lost 3.78%. Dillard's Inc (NYSE:DDS), which gave a quarterly report that also disappointed Wall Street, fell 1.62%. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) lost 0.96% but was still up 5.5% for the week following steady gains since last Friday. Macy’s (NYSE:M) rose 0.38% after its poor quarterly report on Wednesday triggered a selloff in U.S. retailers.

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