European Shares Set For Positive Open

European stocks are likely to open higher on Monday amid reports that the Trump administration and congressional leaders are close to finalizing a support package worth about $300 billion for small businesses.

Asian markets dropped along with U.S. stock futures despite China cutting its benchmark lending rate by 20 basis points as expected.

The global death toll due to novel coronavirus has surpassed 1,65,000 with around 40,000 dead in the United States itself. Nearly 24 lakh people have been infected of the virus worldwide so far.

China should face “consequences” if it was found to have been “knowingly responsible” for the novel coronavirus outbreak, President Donald Trump said at a White House news conference on Saturday.

Vice president Mike Pence said that the U.S. would “make proper inquiries into this at the proper time.”

The World Bank urged countries to keep trade open, saying the crisis will likely
hit the poorest and most vulnerable countries and people the hardest.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned that the world economy is now bound to suffer a “severe recession” in 2020.

Gold prices fell to a more than one-week low as the dollar firmed up ahead of a busy week of corporate earnings reports and economic data.

Oil extended its slide to reach its lowest level in more than two decades on expectations of weakening demand because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In economic releases, U.K. house prices fell 0.2 percent in April amid coronavirus lockdown, property website Rightmove said. The website said it was impossible to provide meaningful statistics on prices due to the lockdown.

Foreign trade and current account data from euro area are due later in the day, headlining a light day for the European economic news.

Across the Atlantic, reports on new and existing home sales, durable goods orders and consumer sentiment along with earnings from prominent companies such as IBM Corp., Coca-Cola, Netflix, AT&T, Intel, American Express and Verizon will be in focus this week.

U.S. stocks posted strong gains on Friday to reach their best closing levels in over a month after the White House released guidelines for states to reopen their economies and investors cheered promising early data related to a potential coronavirus treatment from Gilead Sciences.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 3 percent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rallied 1.4 percent and the S&P 500 advanced 2.7 percent.

European markets joined a global rally on Friday, as investors brushed aside poor China growth data to focus on positive coronavirus headlines.

The pan European Stoxx 600 climbed 2.6 percent. The German DAX jumped 3.2 percent, France’s CAC 40 index surged 3.4 percent and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 added 2.8 percent.

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