Shell Oil Refinery at Pulau Bukom off Singapore on July 16, 2020.
Roslan Rahman / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images
European stocks traded lower on Thursday on the busiest day of the second-quarter earnings season, with growing concerns about a slow economic recovery and a possible second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP,
fell 1.4%. YM00 US Stock Futures,
fell sharply when European stock markets opened
The German DAX DAX,
shed 2.5% and the FTSE 100 UKX,
fell 1.7%.
Traders watched the US economy, where Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said again that the central bank was not even “thinking about thinking” about raising interest rates, as the figures are expected to Second quarter gross domestic product reveals an annualized drop of 35% when released at 8:30 am Eastern time.
Germany reported its worst drop in GDP since 1970, with the top eurozone economy falling 10.1% quarter-over-quarter.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson fears a second wave of coronavirus in two weeks, the Daily Mail reported, citing a Downing Street source. Globally, the total number of coronavirus cases exceeded the 17 million mark.
The earnings season continues on both sides of the Atlantic. Stoxx Europe 600 companies’ earnings per share have fallen 42% in the second quarter, according to FactSet Research data on 40% of results so far.
Anheuser-Busch InBev ABI,
OUTBREAK,
Shares were up 6% as brewery Budweiser’s second-quarter earnings fell below estimates following a downturn in its business in Africa. But the decline in revenue was not as steep as estimated due to its business in Latin America and Asia.
Lloyds Banking Group LLOY,
It fell 8%, after it posted an unexpected pre-tax loss for the first half of 2020 by reserving a large impairment charge.
Royal Dutch Shell RDSA,
took an amortization of $ 16.8 billion and said that due to the delay in contracts, the impact of low oil prices is expected to be more significant in the third quarter, and rival Total FP,
took $ 8.1 billion of impairments.
AstraZeneca AZN,
It increased 2.3% as the UK pharmaceutical giant reported that its second-quarter net profit increased and said late-stage trials are underway for the coronavirus vaccine it is developing with researchers from the University of Oxford.
A list of earnings in the United States will also be unveiled Thursday, with top tech companies Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple and Facebook reporting after the trade closes.
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