• Catastrophic labor market data from the USA
• European Stocks end higher on easing US-China tensions
• Eurogroup agrees on details of cheap loans
• European Stocks end higher on easing US-China tensions
• Eurogroup agrees on details of cheap loans
European stocks closed higher on Friday, as tensions between US and Chinese eased after goverment officials from both sides discussed their Phase 1 trade deal in a telephone call and agreed to fulfill their commitments.
Eurozone finance ministers settled the details of the Pandemic Crisis Support, which will offer cheap credit lines that can be tapped until the end of 2022 by countries hit by the coronavirus crisis. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that the credit line of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the EU rescue fund, will be operational on June 1st. Siemens shares soared 4.8% as the company announced cost-reduction plan. Earlier Siemens reported an 18% drop in industrial profits in the first quarter due to the pandemic. German DAX rose 1.4%, France's CAC added 1.1%, UK's FTSE 100 gained 1.4% , Spain's Ibex climbed 0.6%, Italy's FTSE MIB finished 1% higher.
US stock markets gained on Friday after April non-farm payrolls posted an expected record drop of 20.5 million jobs for the month. Today’s report showed that the economy lost fewer jobs in April than previously anticipated. The Unemployment Rate shot up to 14.7%, a post-World War II high.
"There were whispers that the number could come in much worse. The fact they didn't come in higher is a bit of a relief rally. The market is exhaling a little bit on the fact that the worst jobs report in modern history wasn't even worse."said Darrell Cronk, chief investment officer at Wells Fargo Wealth & Investment Management in New York.
Gold price is fluctuating in a relatively tight range around $1712/oz and struggles to make a decisive move in either direction. Despite today's poor performance, the precious metal is looking to register modest weekly gains.
Economic calendar for Monday is almost empty. The week ahead sees some key retail sales from US and China and US, China and Eurozone industrial production numbers released, which will provide more informations as to just how deeply economies may collapse in the second quarter. Also investors should pay atention to the US Weekly jobless claims report on Thursday and first quarter GDP updates including UK, Germany and Japan. Taking into consideration that the PMI surveys for April showed the global economy is shrinking at record rate, with manufacturing slumping at a pace not seen for 11 years, traders should expect more gloomy news in the coming week.
On the earnings front Under Armour (UA.US,UAA.US), Simon Property Group (SPG.US), Cisco Systems (CSCO.US),Aurora Cannabis (ACB.US), Applied Materials (AMAT.US), VF Corporation (VFC.US), JD.com (JD.US) will post their quarterly results next week.
USDCHF bounced off the major resistance at 0.9774 and found some support at 0.9687. If bulls will manage to push the price further down, then the currency pair may test the support at 0.9585. Source: xStation5
