Europe midday: Stocks off lows, Commerzbank and NN Group pace gains
Nn Group Nv
€42.91
16:30 18/04/24
Stocks remained in the red come midday after Chinese authorities revised their methodology for reporting coronavirus cases, leading to a sharp upward revision, but had come off their lows.
Cboe Europe All Companies
50.65
11:45 01/12/20
Cboe Europe All Companies ex UK
20,057.50
11:45 01/12/20
Cboe Europe Finance Sector
12,912.08
11:45 01/12/20
Cboe Eurozone All Companies
18,467.46
11:45 01/12/20
Cboe NL 25
80.68
10:55 19/04/24
The new methodology resulted in an almost 15,000 person increase in the number of reported cases.
Chris Beauchamp at IG said the change made the charts showing infection rates look "much more worrying [...] putting the gains of the past few days in doubt."
Nonetheless, Beauchamp also noted the resilience in assets such as the Australian dollar and oil futures, which would seem to show that traders weren't panicking.
"Encouragingly, the number of recoveries is also on the rise, providing some hope that the situation is still moving in the right direction."
And the latest update from the World Health Organisation released overnight appeared to show a further slowdown in the daily rate of new cases in China.
As of 1355 GMT, the pan-European Stoxx 600 was down 0.58% at 428.66, while the Dax was 0.42% lower to 13,691.14 and the FTSE Mibtel was giving back 0.35% to 24,774.89.
Commerzbank was near the top of the leaderboard on the Stoxx 600 after unveiling plans for further cost-cutting alongside what it described as "stable" operating profits in the fourth quarter and a "significant" increase in its common equity Tier 1 ratio to 13.4%.
Shares of Deutsche Bank were continuing to push higher alongside.
So too was stock in Holland's NN Group after posting fourth quarter net income of €329.0m, which was up from -€533.0m in the comparable year ago period, when it incurred in a goodwill impairment charge.
Front month Brent crude oil futures meanwhile had turned around to trade 0.07% higher to $55.83 a barrel on the ICE, despite reports of a Saudi output increase in January which analysts said showed the Kingdom was not willing to go it alone on production curbs.
In economic news, INSEE reported a large and unexpected drop in the ILO unemployment rate for the fourth quarter to 8.1% from 8.6% over the prior three-month stretch (consensus: 8.5%).
Further east, Germany's ministry of finance confirmed that the year-on-year rate of harmonised consumer prices was steady in January at 1.6%.