* STOXX 600 up 0.4%
* Tech bounces back
* Unibail falls over 10%, weighs on real estate
* Q4 misses hit Sweco, Saab, Commerzbank
* Markets await U.S. jobless claims
Feb 11 - Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com
AIRBNB = EUROPE'S TRAVEL AND LEISURE INDEX (1355 GMT)
The meteoric rise of Airbnb shares since their stock market debut in December is not very flattering to say the least for Europe's hospitality business.
With its market capitalisation of close to $130 billion, it is actually now worth roughly the same as the 15 companies which constitute Europe's travel and leisure index.
That index not only includes hotel giants like France's Accor or the UK's InterContinental Hotels Group, but also airlines, like Ryanair or Lufthansa and betting group Flutter Entertainment.
Here you can see below the catch up done in about two months:
And this bubble chart here shows how the constituents of the index have fared:
(Julien Ponthus, Ritvik Carvalho)
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ELECTIONS IN CATALONIA: LIMITED RISKS (1238 GMT)
With political instability being more crucial than ever in coronavirus times, Catalonia's elections on Sunday will be closely watched by investors.
“Polls suggest centre-left mainstream PSC (Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya) emerging as the single largest party, but pro-independence parties are still leading in aggregate,” a Citi research note recalls.
As a consequence “negotiations for government formation may jeopardise further the central government stability.”
But, bottom line, “we do not expect this to bring down the (prime minister Pedro) Sanchez government and Bonos reaction should, therefore, be limited,” it says.
When the current Spanish government won a confidence in Parliament in 2020, abstentions by Catalan and Basque members of Parliament played a critical role.
Catalonia's election is viewed as a litmus test for the region's separatist movement. Two pro-independence parties currently govern the region, but opinion polls are split on who could win this time.
In the chart below the spread between German Bund and Spanish Bonos yields below pre-pandemic levels.
(Stefano Rebaudo)
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REFLATION TRADE ANGST (1148 GMT)
There's no doubt many investors started having second thought on the reflation trade looking at yesterday's flat U.S. inflation.
That, combined with China's CPI falling 0.3% in January is probably enough to think twice before going all-in in what has been such a popular trade since November.
For SocGen's global strategist and permabear Albert Edwards, there's a clear possibility investors jumped the gun on that one.
"As we warned last week, the global reflation trade may well have got ahead of itself and we could be nearing a reversal", he wrote today, noting that "commodities and cryptocurrencies have been particularly bubbly".
And while there's been some movements upwards in inflation expectations rates "ACTUAL core CPI inflation remains moribund".
Actually, Edwards goes a bit beyond moribund in the life/death analogy.
"Like China, U.S. core inflation is dead", he argues, wondering whether the country will follow China in outright deflation.
Here's the chart based on his last question:
Regarding China, some analysts are not that pessimistic when it comes to inflation.
Analysts from Capital Economics argued that the slip into deflation in China was mainly caused by high base effects a year earlier and will likely reverse sharply in February due to Lunar New Year demand. CPI is likely to increase by around 2% by the end of the second quarter, they also said.
(Julien Ponthus)
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NOT ENOUGH FISCAL STIMULUS IN EUROPE (1106 GMT)
Concerns about the European economy lagging behind the U.S. and failing to catch-up with pre-pandemic levels are not new, but the amount of the gap and its impact on inflation on both side of the Atlantic are still up to debate.
Unicredit chief economist Erik F. Nielsen expects Europe not to close the output gap with the pre-pandemic levels and sees no risk of pushing inflation sustainably back to the ECB target.
This while the U.S. will have a massive boost to growth and employment this year, which will push inflation not so dramatically higher, because of the fairly flat Phillips Curve.
It makes sense to boost expenditures and defer or cut taxes to protect the most vulnerable in society and to reduce the economic scarring effects, such as the destruction of productive capacity, he says.
Unicredit sees the U.S. $1.9 trillion package to be scaled back to $1.2 trillion, for a total 2021 fiscal injection of $2.1 trillion in addition to $200 billion of automatic stabilizers. All in all, that would mean a total boost to demand to of 2.5 times the output gap.
The euro zone is planning 420 billion euro in national and EU fiscal injection, in addition to 300 billion euro of automatic stabilizers and it will get just over 70% of the output gap covered.
The "Output gap" reflects the gap between the level of real GDP in 4Q20 and its pre-crisis trend as well as the pre-crisis output gap, which is estimated minus 2-2.5% for Europe and zero for the U.S.
(Stefano Rebaudo)
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A CANARY IN THE REFLATION MINE (1028 GMT)
European banking stocks are the ultimate value trap. So goes the popular narrative. But with a banking sub-index hitting a one-year high this week and up more than 50% from November, investors are again asking whether eurozone banks are set for more gains or will they fall back again?
Focusing through the yield curve dynamics, a steeper curve implies wider net interest margins for banks and therefore improved profitability. That's all well for banks in the U.S., where the yield curve has steepened by nearly 100 bps over the past 12 months, but in Germany the curve
has only widened by roughly 15 bps over that period.
But the truth may be more nuanced. The European Central Bank's latest weapon, the pandemic emergency purchase program, introduced in March 2020, gave Frankfurt more firepower to keep yields in check.
Gavekal strategists believe the ECB is more concerned with compressing spreads across its myriad bond markets as widening spreads, whether sovereign spreads to bunds, interbank spreads or corporate spreads, disrupt the smooth transmission of ECB monetary policy to the eurozone’s real economy.
For example, Italy's 10-year spread over Germany has dropped back to more than five-year lows below 100 bps
. It was at more than 300 bps in late 2018.
Targeting spreads also suggest the ECB may not be completely averse to yield curve steepening as long as it is uniform across the eurozone and the moves are gradual. If that's the case, there may be more upside to eurozone banking stocks.
(Saikat Chatterjee)
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BIG MISSES AND BIG FALLS AT THE OPEN (0839 GMT)
While European stock markets have opened broadly flat as expected, there's a lot of big falls among the top movers.
Eight of the ten biggest moves are in the red with notably Unibail falling over 10% after suspending dividend payments.
Other stocks in the real estate segment are suffering with France's Klepierre down 9%.
There were also other unpleasant surprises for investors in the flurry of Q4 reports:
Sweden's Sweco and Saab are down over 8% and 7%, respectively, after earnings miss.
Belgian bank KBC also lost 5%, with its outlook for net interest income below expectations. While in Germany, Commerzbank failed to impress too and it is down 4% after a 2.7 billion euro loss in Q4.
Shareholders in France's Credit Agricole were more lucky with the bank rising 4%, boosted by a strong dividend.
The banking sector is the worst performing one, losing 0.7%.
A few positive beats nevertheless: Royal Mail is at the top of the STOXX 600, rising over 8% with record parcels orders boosting earnings.
Shares in Rexel, the French electrical parts supplier soared almost 8% due to a strong outlook.
(Julien Ponthus)
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INFLATION: THE DOG ISN'T BARKING YET (0806 GMT)
Perhaps one of the most intriguing feature of economics in recent years is the inability to both forecast and prop up inflation. The good old days of the Phillips curve predicting a stable relationship between employment, economic growth and prices seem long gone.
Still, data showing U.S. inflation stayed flat in January came as a bit of a surprise, given the sheer amounts of stimulus being thrown at the economy.
While President Joe Biden is aiming for a $1.9 trillion spending package, the Fed, as its chief Jerome Powell repeated last night, won't consider slowing the printing presses until the 2% inflation figure is reached -- and exceeded.
So no bark from the dog so far. But watch U.S. weekly jobless claims due later on Thursday.
The data and Powell's comments reversed an eight-day long Treasury selloff streak, with 10-year yields sliding to 1.135%, well off Monday's 1.2% levels. The dollar too is down for the fourth straight day.
So far though, investors don't seem to be having second thoughts about doubling down on the reflation trade, which lifted global equity markets to new record highs in Asia. And more than 80% of U.S. companies have so far beaten forecasts for Q4 earnings.
In Europe too, bank shares are near 11-month highs. Despite huge Q4 losses, the pandemic impact seems to have been tempered by investment banking operations. Germany's Commerzbank
reported net losses of $3.3 billion while Credit Agricole posted a 92.6% profit drop
Key developments that should provide more direction to markets on Thursday:
-U.S. initial jobless, 30yr bond auction -New York Fed President John Williams speaks -Central bank meetings in Peru, Serbia, Philippines and Mexico -UK Rics housing survey -European results - AstraZeneca forecast 2021 revenue growth and beat analysts' sales estimates; Spirits group Pernod Ricard expects sales to return to organic growth in 2020/21; Zurich Insurance ZURN.S reported a 20% fall in 2020 operating profit on Thursday -U.S. results with Pepsico PEP.PO, Kraft Heinz KHC.O, Kellog K.N, Walt Disney DIS.N
(Julien Ponthus)
EUROPE SET FOR A SUBDUED OPEN AND WEEK (0631 GMT)
European futures are flat at the moment, pointing to a subdued open in what is so far a directionless week.
While record highs have been broken across the U.S. and Asia, the pan-European STOXX 600 is still about 5% below its peak of February 2020.
The index closed at 409.54 points last Friday and is currently at 409.47, which is really as flat as can be.
It's not possible to blame the earnings season for the performance with the continent's blue chips beating analysts' expectations more than they usually do.
But on that front another flurry of Q4 results are expected this morning which could help form some direction of travel moving through the session.
(Julien Ponthus)
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