Europe open: Stocks mixed despite big rally for government bonds after ECB acts

Stock markets on the Continent have turned mixed following early gains on the back of the European Central Bank's unexpected announcement overnight of a massive €750bn asset purchase programme.

In the background, even analysts - and policymakers - appeared at pains to get their heads around the likely fallout from the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, although there did appear to be a degree of underlying optimism.

And the ECB's latest move did elicit a very big reaction in government debt markets - particularly in the euro area periphery.

"Given the experience of recent weeks, I'm not particularly confident that we'll see anything more than a short-term bounce on this occasion as well [...] Ultimately, the only thing investors are interested in is the number of coronavirus cases," said Oanda senior market analyst Craig Erlam.

As of 1030 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was 0.30% lower to 278.81, alongside a 0.8% drop on the German Dax to 8,373.90, while Milan's FTSE Mibtel was 2.1% higher at 15,437.57.

Ten-year Greek government bond yields on the other hand were a massive 184 basis points lower to 2.1%, alongside an equally sharp 70 basis point drop on similarly-dated Italian bonds to 1.70%.

On a more positive note, Erlam added: "The monetary easing has been coming thick and fast recently and while I have no doubt that it's making a huge difference and will continue to do so for the rest of the year, investors just haven't been buying it. [...] The equity markets will eventually bounce back properly."

To take note of, German economic research institute IFW was now reportedly forecasting a contraction in German GDP of between 4.5% and 9.0% for 2020.

Rival think-tank DIW on the other hand was anticipating only a 0.1% dip across the entire year.

Meanwhile, the Ifo institute's closely-followed business confidence gauge registered its biggest decline since 1991 in March, falling from a reading of 96.0 in February to 87.7 - its lowest level since August 2009.