© Reuters.
By Peter Nurse
Investing.com – European stock markets are seen opening mixed Tuesday, consolidating after recent gains, with earnings from oil giant Total (NYSE:TOT) in the spotlight.
At 2:10 AM ET (0710 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.3% lower, the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. fell 0.3%, while CAC 40 futures in France climbed 0.1%.
Global stock markets have climbed strongly in the last few months, helped by optimism of future economic growth as governments and central banks continue massive spending and easy money policies while vaccination programs point to the end of the coronavirus pandemic.
Wall Street reached all-time closing highs on Monday as the Nasdaq Composite added nearly 1% and the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained about 0.75%.
The major European indices have generally seen less impressive gains, although the German DAX did reach an all-time high on Monday, with the continent hit hard by the second surge of the virus and European Union’s vaccination drive falling far behind its U.S. and U.K. equivalents.
That said, the French economy, the region’s second largest, is still on course to rebound 5% this year despite the uncertainty created by the coronavirus pandemic, the head of the country’s central bank said on Tuesday, reiterating its December forecast.
On the corporate front, investors will dissect earnings from French oil giant Total (PA:TOTF) after numbers from rivals BP (NYSE:BP) and Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSa) illustrated the difficult conditions the sector has suffered over the last year.
Earnings from the likes of French video games company Ubisoft Entertainment (PA:UBIP) and online grocer Ocado (LON:OCDO) will also be in focus.
It’s a relatively quiet day on the economic data front, with the highlights being German current account figures and Italian industrial output figures for December.
Oil prices continued to push higher Tuesday, reaching their highest levels in 13 months on growing optimism of the recovery of fuel demand coupled with supply curbs by the top crude producers, primarily Saudi Arabia.
Investors now await U.S. crude oil supply data from the American Petroleum Institute, due later in the day.
U.S. crude futures traded 0.8% higher at $58.44 a barrel, while the international benchmark Brent contract rose 0.6% to $61.09. Both contracts are at their highest since January 2020, and have posted gains for the seventh consecutive session on Tuesday, the longest win streak since January 2019.
Elsewhere, gold futures rose 0.4% to $1,840.70/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.3% higher at 1.2081.
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