Today there is a massive onslaught of economic data from all around the world.
First off, a GDP report for the second quarter showed that the German economy contracted by 10.1%, more than the anticipated 9%. This means Europe’s strongest economy was hit worse than expected by the coronavirus pandemic. Still, recent fundamentals have shown confident monthly rebounds, so the poor GDP performance might balance out during Q3.
The unemployment rate in Germany did not increase in July, but it did rise slightly more than expected in Italy (7.8% against the 7.7% forecasted). Later today Germany will also publish an inflation rate report.
The data for the eurozone as a whole showed good results in the economic and industrial sentiments. Nevertheless, the EU-wide unemployment rate was also worse than the forecasts at 8.8%.
Later in the day we also expect the jobless claims reports (initial and continuing) from the United States. Investors are following these with keen eyes because these numbers show just how much the labor market is affected by the ongoing coronavirus outbreaks in the United States. We also expect a GDP report from the US.
The global coronavirus pandemic remains a major concern for the markets today as well. The total number of Covid-19 cases has now surpassed 17.2 million. Of those, 4.5, 2.5, and 1.5 million are in the United States, Brazil, and India, respectively. Brazil recorded a staggering increase of 70,000 new infections yesterday.
Besides raw fundamentals, the stock markets will also be quite busy today as the current earnings season continues. The four most important tech companies will release their reports today - Facebook, Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple.
Many advertisers have been boycotting Facebook’s social networks due to allegations that the company is not doing enough to stop the spread of fake news and misleading information, so the company might have taken a hit from that.
