The main European lists (including Piazza Affari) are heading for a declining start to the session, maintaining a more cautious approach seen globally at the beginning of the week. An opening that could be affected by the mixed performance of the main Asian stock exchanges which have lost their luster as the optimism about a gradual economic recovery from the pandemic is mitigated by concerns about the variants that are spreading in some countries.
“European equities got off to a lackluster start to the week yesterday, with weakness in commodity prices offset by the strength of defensive stocks, with utilities and healthcare outperforming,” said Michael Hewson, Chief Market Analyst at CMC Markets UK. noting that “much of yesterday’s commodity price weakness, which saw oil drop to one-month lows, was concern over the rise in cases of Delta variants in both China and the United States, which acts as a brake on demand “.
Meanwhile, today’s macro agenda sees the German Zew index for the month of August in the foreground. According to Hewson, this figure is expected to drop to 55, after falling to 63.3 in July from 79.8 in June. Among the many reasons, explains the analyst, there are those attributable to the damage caused by the recent floods. Also out today for the US is the NFIB on the optimism of small businesses. The interventions of the day on the calendar include Loretta Meste, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland with a speech on inflation risks.