Europe close: Stocks finish higher despite crash in WTI oil futures
Stocks rebounded from their intra-day lows near the end of the session after Germany eased its Covid-19 lockdown slightly and amid some slightly less dire news regarding the death toll from the pandemic.
In the UK, on Monday the number of fatalities retreated to its slowest in two weeks and in Spain to the least since the start of the pandemic.
"US futures pointed to a weak open, but already the buyers have started to show up, pushing indices off their lows," IG's Chris Beauchamp said shortly before the end of trading.
"But with strength developing in pockets of the market, such as banks and financial stocks, it looks like we are in store for more gains as the week goes on."
By the close of markets, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was 0.67% higher to 335.70, alongside a 0.47% rise to 10,675.90 for the German Dax while the FTSE Mibtel was up by 0.05% at 17,064.14.
Notably, the Stoxx 600 sector gauge for Oil&Gas shares finished 0.5% lower, paring an early retreat of nearly 4%, even as futures on West Texas Intermediate crude oil for delivery in May were crashing by 60%.
It was the woerst ever single-day rout for WTI and at roughly $10 a barrel crude was trading at its lowest ebb since 1998.
The Covid-19 virus wasn't having it all its own way judging by various reports.
Bloomberg pointed to progress being made in antibody therapies for Covid-19, including from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, with effective treatments possible by fall if all went well.
Meanwhile, in remarks to ANSA, Advent-Irbm's chief, Piero Di Lorenzo, whose company was set to start clinical trials on humans for a Covid-19 vaccine at the end of April, expressed hope that it could be ready for heakthcare workers and police by September.
On the purely economic side of things however, the news continued to be dire.
Spain's central bank forecast a contraction in the country's gross domestic product of between 6.8% and 12.4% in 2020, depending amongst other factors on how quickly containment measures could be rolled back and the damage done to businesses.
Despite such projections, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Spanish government bond headed eight basis points higher to 0.89%.
According to Eurostat, the euro area's seasonally adjusted foreign trade surplus widened from €18.2bn in January to €25.8bn in February, amid a slide in imports.
Producer prices in Germany fell at a year-on-year rate of 0.8% in March, down from 0.1% for February.