(Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
U.S. stocks are set to open slightly lower on Tuesday, down from fresh records reached on Monday, as equities in Asia fell and European stocks rallied to play catch-up after markets were closed for Easter Monday.
In Asia, Tokyo’s
fell 1.3%, while Hong Kong’s
lifted 1.97%. The
dipped 0.04%. The
in London was up 1.2%, while the
in Paris was 0.5% higher and Frankfurt’s
lifted 0.9%. The U.S. premarket looked set for a soft open, with Dow futures pointing down around 40 points after the index closed at 33,527 on Monday.
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Both the
and
hit new highs on Monday in an Easter rally driven by positive jobs data, and analysts are eyeing more macro indicators in the week ahead amid quiet on the corporate news front.
“The rest of the week could see markets struggle for direction with relatively few big corporate announcements on the horizon,” said Danni Hewson, an analyst at AJ Bell.
“Given investors’ current understandable obsession with what will happen next on inflation and interest rates—tomorrow’s release of minutes from the latest meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve are likely to be closely followed to get a sense of the central bank’s current thinking on monetary policy,” Hewson added.
The analyst also noted that panels featuring Federal Reserve Chair
Jerome Powell
and Treasury Secretary
Janet Yellen
will be closely watched at spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Following stocks moving lower in Asia, Stephen Innes, an analyst at Axi, noted that the Chinese central bank has asked the nation’s major lenders to curtail loan growth for the rest of this year, according to a report from Bloomberg.
“The softer credit impulse is seemingly not having much of an effect on sentiments as the U.S. economy continues to carry the reflation baton spreading good cheers across global markets,” Innes said.
was a standout in London trading, with shares in the oil major rising 3% after the group said it expects to hit its $35 billion net debt target in the first quarter of 2021, earlier than expected and paving the way for share buybacks. The group’s net debt at the end of 2020 was $38.9 billion.
stock lifted 2.5% in Frankfurt, after CNBC reported that technology giant
will stop using
Oracle’s
financial software in the next few weeks and switch to SAP.
Shares in French biotech
climbed near 5%, after the group reported positive early results for its Covid-19 vaccine.
Shares in
fell 2% in early trading before paring losses to settle near flat. The Swiss bank said that it now expects to report a 900 million franc ($959 million) loss for the first quarter of 2021, driven by a 4.4 billion franc charge related to the meltdown of Archegos Capital Management in late March. The bank also slashed its dividend and said two top executives would leave the bank.
On the economic front, the International Monetary Fund is releasing its World Economic Outlook and Global Financial Stability report. Job openings for February are also due, and the Richmond Fed President will speak in the afternoon.
There are no major U.S. corporate earnings scheduled for Tuesday.
