European equities managed to stage a bounce on Tuesday
Worries about the pandemic along with fading pandemic relief efforts from the U.S. government and rising inflation expectations sent Wall Street stocks sharply lower overnight. The S&P 500 lost 1.59%, the Nasdaq Composite shed 1.06% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped over 2% to post its worst day in nine months. The yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped below 1.20%, to a level last seen in February.
Today in Asia, stocks extended losses amid persisting fears the spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus would dent the fragile global economic recovery. MSCI’s gauge of Asia Pacific stocks outside Japan lost nearly 1% while Japan’s Nikkei 225 hit a six-month low after the data showed that core consumer prices in the country at the fastest annual pace in over a year.
European equities, however, managed to stage a bounce after their worst day in seven months, to open in positive territory on Tuesday despite concerns around the spread of Covid-19 variants. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index was up 0.9% in early trade. U.S. stock futures were up in early premarket trading as well.
Meanwhile, the dollar trimmed early gains as risk sentiment has improved somehow in Europe. As such, EURUSD bounced from intraday lows around 1.1770 but still faces resistance represented by the 1.1800 figure, suggesting the common currency lacks recovery momentum as traders remain cautious. As long as the euro is capped by this figure, the path of least resistance remains to the downside. On the data front, German producer Prices came in above estimates in June, rising at a monthly 1.3% and 8.5% over the last twelve months.
