Europe open: Stocks rally as Merkel and Macron prepare EU-wide initiative

Stocks rallied at the start of the week as Germany and France moved to organise a Europe-wide response to the pandemic and the head of the US Central bank sounded a warily confident note on the outlook.

German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and French President, Emanuel Macron, were scheduled to unveil their initiative around 1500 GMT.

Reports also indicated that a plan to reopen intra-European travel was afoot.

And overnight, Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, told broadcaster CBS: "If we are thoughtful and careful about how we reopen the economy so that people take these social distancing measures forward and try to do what we can not to have another outbreak...then the recovery can begin fairly soon."

As of 1100 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was ahead by 2.0% at 334.82, alongside a jump of 2.73% to 10,750 for the German Dax while France's Cac-40 was up by 2.12% to 4,368.13.

Basic Resources companies' shares were pacing gains, with the Stoxx 600 sector gauge adding 5.36%, alongside gains of 3.92% for the Autos&Parts sector index and a 3.23% for Travel&Leisure names.

Japanese tech investor Softbank will sell a big part of its stake in T-Mobile to Deutsche Telekom in a bid to raise cash, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In its monthly economic bulletin, the German central bank, Bundesbank, described the economic landscape in the euro areas largest economy as bleak, saying that some containment measures were likely to remain in place for a while and warning that households would likely remain cautious.