Europe midday: Stocks only marginally higher, despite elevated volatility
European shares are putting in a slight bounce on the back of a big bounce on Wall Street overnight from the session lows despite the still extremely heightened tensions over Ukraine.
Nevertheless, volatility remained the order of the day with the VStoxx index for volatility on the Euro Stoxx 50 still near its late November 2021 highs, when the Omicron variant of Covid-19 first appeared.
Against that backdrop, as of 1222 GMT, the pan-European Stoxx 600 was up 0.45% at 458.41. Monday’s 3.8% slump was the worst since June 2020 as a military build-up on Ukraine’s border with Russia saw investors dump equities.
The Dax was up by 0.46% to reach 15,079.34 while the FTSE Mibtel was barely higher, trading up by 0.18% to 26,019.94.
Euro/dollar was unloved, retreating by 0.49% to 1.1271.
On the economic front, the prestigious IFO institute's business confidence index for January printed ahead of economists' forecasts at 95.7 (consensus: 94.7) and up from 94.8 in December.
Meanwhile, in Italy, voting for the country's presidency moved into its second round.
In equity news, computer peripherals-maker Logitech International jumped nearly 10% after raising its earnings forecast for the current fiscal year.
Ericsson was right behind Logitech at the top of the Stoxx with a near 7% gain as it reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, helped by higher sales of telecoms gear with more countries rolling out 5G networks.
Watchmaker Swatch Group reversed early and was down by 1.6% despite issuing a forecast for double-digit sales growth in local currencies in 2022.
Royal Mail shares gained 3% as the British postal carrier reported a smaller-than-expected fall in parcel volumes over Christmas, and despite lowering annual profits guidance as it announced 700 managerial job cuts.
At the bottom of the index, Danish IT consultancy Netcompany fell 7% after its interim full-year earnings report.
Credit Suisse slipped 3% after the scandal-hit bank issued a profits warning as it flagged fresh legal costs and said business in its trading and wealth management divisions had slowed.