It appears that Monday 6th April may be remembered as the day that the global stock markets resurged and investors heaved a sigh of relief. This turnaround is due to the fact that it seems the global pandemic is peaking in the worst-hit countries, such as Spain and Italy, giving investors the green light to start buying again.
According to the New York Times European stocks were trading 2 to 4 percent higher after a modest rally in Asia picked up steam later in the day. At the time of writing the New York exchange hadn’t opened, but Futures markets are predicting it will also see a good day today.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index rose 4.2 percent. South Korea’s Kospi index rose 3.9 percent. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index was up 2.2 percent. Taiwan’s Taiex was up 1.6 percent.
However, oil prices, which usually rise when there’s good news, are not doing so well due to the continued argument between Russia and Saudi Arabia. Owing to the coronavirus epidemic, demand for oil has dropped precipitously. Saudi Arabia and OPEC proposed a deal that would trim oil production in response, but Russia declined to go along with it. So the battle continues.
A stress test for Europe
Another thing that came to light in today’s news is that European banking regulators had planned to stress test banks to see if they could withstand another major economic downturn. As it happens, they didn’t need to run any simulation, because the real thing came along in the form of the coronavirus Covid-19.
The New York Times said, “Government officials planned on running their test earlier this year, and it was meant to simulate a 4.3 percent decline in European economic output by 2022.” But now they are faced with an even worse ‘worst case’ scenario.
Some economists predict that Europe’s economy could drop by over 10% by June, and the continent’s central bankers are concerned that the crisis proofing that they put in place, won’t be sufficient to cope with what promises to be a global financial meltdown. It’s a worrying time, as European banks have never fully recovered from the last big crisis in 2008. And firms like BMW are already recording a massive drop in sales. The German carmaker announced sales had plunged by 20% in January to March 2020 and that is probably by now a conservative figure, as most countries hadn’t gone into lockdown until mid-to late March. In the UK, car dealers sold 200,000 cars fewer than they did in March 2019. It isn’t the only industry under stress, and many big companies will be looking to expand their existing lines of credit.
But, for the moment, we can take some pleasure in the fact that Covid-19 infections and deaths appear to be declining in the worst hit places, and that there is still investor enthusiasm for global stocks.