Europe open: Stocks drop amid deadlock on stimulus bill in US Senate
Airbus Group N.V.
€158.28
18:16 19/04/24
Shares have started the morning trading sharply lower after a vote overnight in the US Senate on an emergency stimulus plan failed to pass muster.
"Stock markets are down this morning as a deepening health crisis and an absence of a US rescue plan have weighed on sentiment. Soaring infection rates, tighter restrictions and chatter of lockdowns are hitting equities," said David Madden at CMC Markets UK.
On Sunday evening, the upper house of Congress voted 47 to 47 against a $1.6trn stimulus bill that Democrats was too biased towards corporations. For the procedural vote to be successful, 60 senators needed to support the bill.
As of 1030 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was trading down by 3.69% to 282.84, alongside a 3.4% fall on the German Dax to 8,624.60, while the FTSE Mibtel was 3.23% lower to 15,224.76.
Crude oil futures were moving lower too, slipping 4.37% to $25.85 a barrel on the ICE.
Stock in jet-maker Airbus was in the headlines after the manufacturer scrapped its dividend payout and full-year guidance even as it announced various moves intended to create a cash buffer of €30bn to help ride out the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
After falling by 14% at one point during the session, the company's shares were last up 1%.
At the weekend, economists at Morgan Stanley pared their global growth forecasts fpr 2020 saying that the worsening epidemic was "severely damaging" the global economy, which was now expected to register a contraction near that seen in 2009.
However, the most likely scenario was that the "aggressive" monetary and fiscal response would see growth recover in the third quarter.
Eurostat was scheduled to publish its euro area consumer confidence gauge at 1400 GMT.