European Equities: German Trade and Eurozone GDP Figures in Focus

The Majors

It was a bullish start to the week for the European majors on Monday.

The DAX30 rallied by 3.31%, with the CAC40 and the EuroStoxx600 ending the day up by 2.08% and by 2.13% respectively.

Going into the European session, chatter from the National People’s Congress and trade data from China set the tone.

Trade data from China was particularly, impressive as exports surged by 60.6%.

From the Eurozone, economic data failed to influence, with no stats from the U.S for the markets to consider late in the session.

The Stats

It was a relatively quiet day on the economic calendar on Monday.  German industrial production figures for Germany drew attention going into the European session.

In January, industrial production slid by 2.5% in January, which was far worse than a forecasted 0.7% decline. Production had risen by 1.9% in December.

According to Destatis,

• In January, production in industry excl. energy and construction was down 0.5%.
• Within industry, production of capital goods fell by 0.8%, with the production of consumer goods by 3.0%.
• The production of intermediate goods increased by 0.7%.
• Outside industry, energy production rise by 0.6%, while production in construction tumbled by 12.2%.
• Production was 4.2% lower, when compared with February 2020.
• Compared with the same month a year earlier, production was down by 3.9%.

From the U.S

It was a particularly quiet session, with no material stats to provide the majors with direction late in the day.

The Market Movers

For the DAX: It was a mixed day for the auto sector on Monday. Volkswagen slipped by 0.09% to buck the trend. BMW and Continental rallied by 4.65% and by 4.23% respectively, however, with Daimler rising by 2.75%.

It was also a bullish day for the banks. Deutsche Bank rallied by 3.96%, with Commerzbank jumping by 5.74%.

From the CAC, it was a bullish day for the banks. BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole rallied by 3.22% and by 2.87% respectively. Soc Gen led the way, however, ended the day up by 4.69%.

The French auto sector found much-needed support. Stellantis NV and Renault saw gains of 5.80% and 3.96% respectively.

Air France-KLM and Airbus SE ended the day up by 2.74% and by 5.34% respectively.

On the VIX Index

It was back into the green for the VIX on Monday, marking a 4^th day in the green from 5 sessions. Partially reversing a 13.69% slide from Friday, the VIX rose by 3.28% to end the day at 25.47.

The NASDAQ and S&P500 fell by 2.41% and by 0.54% respectively, while the Dow rose by 0.97%.