By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - European stock markets edged largely higher Wednesday, helped by some positive corporate news. However, gains are tepid and uncertainty is rife as the coronavirus continues to weigh.
At 3:40 AM ET (0740 GMT), the DAX in Germany traded 0.1% higher, the U.K.'s FTSE index climbed 0.4%, while the CAC 40 in France fell 0.1%.
TomTom (AS:TOM2) stock soared 6.7% after the Dutch navigational-technologies company announced it has extended its contract with Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER). It said its basic underlying earnings for the third quarter had fallen sharply on the year, although they were still above forecasts.
Ashmore Group (LON:ASHM) stock climbed 6.2% after the asset manager said that assets under management for the first quarter of fiscal 2021 rose 2.3% to $85.5 billion.
On the flip side, ASOS (LON:ASOS) stock dropped 5.6%. The online fashion retailer said the economic prospects and lifestyles of its core 20-something audience are likely to remain disrupted for the foreseeable future, but still said its fiscal 2020 pretax profit tripled and forecast that underlying profit would rise again in the current fiscal year. .
The spread of the Covid-19 virus, particularly across Europe, continues to breed uncertainty with a number of countries widening restrictions to try to regain a grip on the pandemic.
Infections rose at the fastest pace since April in Germany, France reported a surge in patients needing intensive care and new cases in Italy jumped to the highest level since March.
At the same time, Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) placed its antibody test on hold due to potential safety concerns, just a day after Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) paused its Covid-19 vaccine trial because of a participant’s unexplained illness.
The International Monetary Fund is due later Wednesday to publish its most detailed study of the pandemic’s impact on public finances. The central point is expected to be that it’s still too early for governments to worry about having to pay for rescue efforts and thus ease back on fiscal spending.
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde is set to speak later Wednesday at the virtual annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, and she is likely to press home that more is needed to combat this outbreak.
Oil prices edged lower Tuesday amid concerns of demand stagnating as rising coronavirus cases, particularly in Europe and the U.S., cause growth to slacken.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cut its forecast for oil demand in 2021 by 80,000 barrels per day to 96.84 million barrels per day in its monthly report on Tuesday, citing damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The weekly report on crude inventories by the American Petroleum Institute is due later in the session, having been delayed by a day because of the Columbus day holiday on Monday in the United States.
U.S. crude futures traded 0.8% lower at $39.89 a barrel, while the international benchmark Brent contract fell 0.7% to $42.16.
Elsewhere, gold futures rose 0.3% to $1,899.40/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.1% lower at 1.1736.