Though slowing in places, Monday’s European gains continued to highlight investors’ new, surprisingly sanguine attitude towards the USA vs The World trade tensions currently brewing.
The FTSE ended up being the best performer as the morning went on, the UK index rising 70 points to cross 7760 for the first time in 11 days. These gains came despite a pull back from Brent Crude, which ducked under $76 per barrel after falling 1.1%, and an arguably disappointing construction PMI, with May’s figure unchanged (but a tad better than forecast) at 52.5. As for the pound, it pushed to a 10 day peak against the dollar, just about stretching its legs beyond $1.338 following a 0.3% increase.
Over in the eurozone, some of the region’s indices couldn’t quite maintain the galloping pace set just out of the gate, knocked back by the news that, according to Sentix, investor confidence is at a 20-month low. This caused the DAX to more than halve its gains 50 points, but with the CAC broadly unchanged with a 0.5% rise, and the Spanish IBEX zooming off into the distance after surging nearly 2%. The euro was also largely unperturbed by the investor confidence reveal, climbing 0.3% the pound and 0.6% against the dollar, hitting an 11 day high against the latter.
Investors look set to continue to keep their eyes closed and ears plugged to the global trade concerns this afternoon, with the Dow Jones on track for a 130-ish point rise when the bell rings on Wall Street. That would take the Dow back above 24750, the level it abandoned last Tuesday.
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