On Monday European stocks edged higher, with investors digesting a fresh round of earnings reports.
The Greek equity market dropped at reopening after a five-week suspension.
The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.3% at 397.64, with telecommunications,
health-care and industrial shares moving higher, while mining, energy and
technology equities were in the red territory.
Germany’s DAX 30 was up 0.3% at 11,335.30, while France’s CAC 40 gained 0.2% to 5,090.89.
The FTSE 100 tacked on 0.1% to 6,702.56.
Investors were inspired by a reading on eurozone
manufacturing in July in the Markit purchasing managers’ index, which
came in at 52.4, compared with the 52.2 preliminary expectation.
The CIPS/Markit manufacturing PMI for the U.K. in July is due at 9.30 a.m. London time.
Greece. Trading on the
Athens Stock Exchange resumed Monday after a five-week closure which had been announced by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras after he had called for a referendum on the bailout terms. The
Athex Composite reopened with a 23% plunge at 615.12, and a 25.5% loss
year to date.
When trading was halted June 29, the benchmark had a year-to-date loss of 3.5%.
Shares in National Bank of Greece gave up 30% after the exchange reopened.
“The political uncertainty is such that it will take a while until
investor confidence in Greek assets is fully restored,” Gary Jenkins at
LNG Capital told Dow Jones Newswires before the market reopened.
Asia. Asian shares dropped after downbeat Chinese manufacturing data and a continued slide in commodity prices.
Earlier Monday, data showed that the Caixin China manufacturing purchasing managers’ index dropped to a two-year low of 47.8 in July.
The Shanghai Composite closed 1.1% lower at 3,622.91. The smaller Shenzhen Composite ended 2.7% at 2,053.12, and the small-cap ChiNext Price Index fell 5.5% at 2,399.27.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 1.2% to 24,344.10.
