European stock markets turned positive on Thursday as the increasing number of countries in the region have gradually started to ease restrictions imposed amid the coronavirus outbreak. Germany is the latest country to set out a plan for how it will reopen its economy starting from next week. It looks like investors have already digested yesterday’s data that pointed to the worst-ever decline in U.S. retail sales while bank giants missed profit estimates in their quarterly reports. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump said that the country has passed the peak of the coronavirus outbreak.
On the data front, Eurozone industrial production dropped -0.1% on a monthly basis while production of durable consumer goods fell by -2.0% and capital goods by -1.5% in February. Year-on-year, industrial production was down 1.9%, from a 1.7% fall in January. Meanwhile, ECB's Lagarde said the central bank will explore all options and all contingencies to support the economy. She also noted that the incoming economic data have started to show unprecedented falls.
Against this backdrop, UK’s FTSE 100 gains 0.24 percent to 5,610, Italy’s FTSE MIB adds 1.11 percent to 16,905. France’s CAC 40 rises by 0.64 percent to 4,381, while German DAX 30 rallies by 1.18 percent to 10,400. U.S. stock index futures point to a positive open ahead of fresh earning reports and weekly jobless claims, which are likely to have surged dramatically last week, taking total claims to 20 million in the past month. Also, later today, Donald Trump is expected to announce new guidelines for re-opening the economy.
Meanwhile, EURUSD remains under the selling pressure amid broad-based dollar strength. On the other hand, the bearish impetus surrounding the common currency is capped by a fairly positive risk sentiment while Eurozone industrial production for February failed to affect the pair as the report is outdated already. The euro dipped to one-week lows around 1.0850 and bounced marginally since then. Despite the pair has trimmed its intraday losses, risks are still skewed to the downside as dollar demand persists.
Elsewhere, gold prices are back in the green after brief profit-taking witnessed yesterday. The precious metal continues to hold above the $1,700 psychological level but is shy of fresh multi-year highs registered around $1,747 earlier in the week. The fact that the bullion demand persists even as risk sentiment has improved somewhat suggests that investors still prefer safe-havens amid the uncertainty related to the coronavirus pandemic. Loner-term outlook for the yellow metal remains bullish as well.
Nathan Lambert, Head of Global FX Analytical Department