By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - European stock markets are seen opening largely unchanged Thursday, as investors digest fresh Covid lockdowns, a new U.S. infrastructure plan and a raft of economic data releases.
At 2:05 AM ET (0705 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.1% higher, CAC 40 futures in France were flat as was the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday ordered France into its third national lockdown and said schools would close for three weeks as he sought to push back a third wave of Covid-19 infections.
New infection numbers hit their highest since November this week in Europe's second-largest economy, while the number of those in intensive care is now approaching the peak of the first wave last year..
In Germany, the premiers of two southern states badly hit by the pandemic urged the rest of the country to reintroduce tougher lockdown measures, while Sweden’s government will postpone a planned easing of some restrictions until the start of May.
Offering support was the news Wednesday that President Joe Biden is set to inject another $2 trillion into the U.S. economy, the world’s driver, with spending on roads, railways, broadband, clean energy and semiconductor manufacture, funded in part by a sharp rise in corporate taxes.
The plan is likely to face opposition from Republicans in Congress, but it comes fresh on the heels of a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package.
European investors also have a large number of economic releases to wade through Thursday. Germany’s retail sales disappointed in February, falling 9.0% on the year and only climbing 1.2% on the month, ahead of the disclosure of final manufacturing PMI data for the region.
Earlier China’s Caixin manufacturing PMI for March also disappointed, dropping to 50.6 from February’s 50.9 reading, while Japan’s Tankan Large Manufacturers Index came in at 5 for the first quarter of 2021, above the –10 reading in the fourth quarter of 2020.
In the corporate sector, Sodexo (PA:EXHO) said it expects its second-half revenue to expand after the French catering and food services group reported a large beat on its first-half profit margin.
Oil prices pushed higher Thursday on expectations that a group of top producers will agree to largely maintain output curbs into May at a meeting later in the session given the surge of Covid-19 cases in many regions.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, a grouping known as OPEC+, is currently reining in output by just over 7 million barrels a day to support prices and reduce oversupply. Saudi Arabia has added to those cuts with a further 1 million barrels a day.
U.S. crude futures traded 0.9% higher at $59.67 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 0.8% to $63.23.
Elsewhere, gold futures fell 0.1% to $1,713.75/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.1% lower at 1.1717.