PARIS / LONDON (dpa-AFX) – After the recent recovery, investors in Europe on Wednesday took advantage of the higher prices and took profits. The EuroStoxx 50 (EURO STOXX 50), which initially gave in only slightly in the morning, lost 2.10 percent to 2856.46 points shortly before midday. However, the leading index has the Euro zone since the Corona crash low in mid-March, up to around 28 percent.
One of the most important course drivers of recent times was “the hoped-for liquidity”, commented market expert Andreas Lipkow from comdirect bank about the market development. He referred to the numerous monetary policy easing of central banks due to the Corona crisis and to the government aid packages. “Now it has to be shown whether the pessimism of the real economic mix or the euphoria on the stock markets will predominate in the medium term.”
Last but not least, this also depends on how the companies will comment on the further course of the year as the reporting season starts. It also matters when curfews and restrictions are loosened and shops reopened, or whether there could possibly be several waves of infection with the new virus.
The French CAC 40 recently dropped 1.98 percent to 4,434.45 points. The London FTSE 100 lost 2.20 percent to 5664.11 points.
All sectors in Europe recently fell, with the oil and gas sector especially showing weakness of minus 4.9 percent, followed by the raw materials sector with minus 3.6 percent and also the banking sector, which also fell by 3.6 percent. The car sector and the travel and leisure sector fared little better, which also lost a little more than 3 percent.
Among the individual values, the focus was on the ASML share certificates (ASML NV), which fell by 1.8 percent in line with the market. Despite the corona crisis, the world’s largest manufacturer of lithography systems for the chip industry received significantly more orders in the first quarter. JPMorgan analyst Sandeep Deshpande highlighted this positively. However, unlike usual, ASML did not provide a forecast for the current quarter or for the year as a whole due to the uncertainty caused by the corona crisis. Otherwise, it was said by dealers and analysts, the quarterly figures corresponded to the previously announced preliminary figures.
By contrast, Sanofi’s shares were the highest in EuroStoxx, at 1.6 percent. In “Footsie”, the shares of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) (GlaxoSmithKline) and AstraZeneca were favorites with an increase of 1.3 percent each. The French pharmaceutical manufacturer Sanofi had announced a cooperation with GSK the day before in the fight against the lung disease Covid-19 caused by the new coronavirus. It is about the joint development of a vaccine.
Danone’s papers were also one of the few winners in the leading index of the eurozone, at 0.2 percent. The Swiss bank Credit Suisse now recommends buying the food manufacturer’s stock. The current rating does not reflect the quality of Danone’s specialty food business, wrote analyst Alan Erskine. In 2019, this contributed 50 percent to the profits of the food company.
The shares of ams lost 6.3 percent in Zurich. According to a market watcher, they suffered from the purchase of OSRAM shares that became known the day before. He pointed out that the sensor manufacturer had bought a package of Osram shares from a hedge fund “at prices well above current prices”. AMS had purchased a total of 4.67 million Osram papers for € 40.99, as reported on Tuesday afternoon. The Osram share is currently trading at EUR 37.19. AMS is currently in the middle of the takeover of Osram./ck/mis
