European stocks and Wall Street futures surged on Thursday, with a flurry of US macroeconomic data and corporate earnings further demonstrating the health of the world’s biggest economy.
The regional STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.5%, Germany’s Dax was up 0.2% and London’s FTSE 100 was up 0.3%.
Contracts tracking the Wall Street benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 were up 0.3% and 0.5% respectively ahead of the New York opening.
Equity markets have slowed after Tesla shares rose more than 5% in after-hours trading on the group’s fourth-quarter results. The electric vehicle company reported record sales of $24.3 billion for the period. That’s a 37% increase from last year and above analysts’ expectations of his $24.2 billion. Net income was $3.7 billion, just above his $3.6 billion forecast.
Payments groups Visa and Mastercard and private equity firm Blackstone will report results later on Thursday. US Gross Domestic Product data, first unemployment claims and new home sales will also be released later in the day.
According to Rabobank analysts, investors face two “key challenges”. The question is whether the US will go into recession and whether the Federal Reserve (Fed) will start cutting rates later this year.
“The central bank maintains the view that the risk of triggering a recession by tightening too much is far less costly than inadvertently letting the inflationary magic escape the bottle by doing nothing,” Rabobank said. rice field. “Risk assets will come under pressure as the market eventually sees that policymakers are keen to ensure that financial conditions do not challenge efforts to curb demand.”
Other regions are expected to do better. Mark Häfele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, said: “Evidence of slowing growth in the US continues to mount, while the eurozone is more resilient and the outlook for China continues to improve. “We believe this divergence will favor emerging markets and German equities, as well as commodities.”
The price of Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, has risen steadily this year, but stabilized at $86.16 a barrel on Thursday. The US and German bond markets were strong, but the dollar was flat against his basket of six peers.
In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 2.4% while Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.1%.
