The lacklustre US labour market will be the centre of attention this week as investors wait out the corporate doldrums between the main European and US reporting seasons.
A meeting on interest rates at the European Central Bank on Wednesday will also be closely followed after comments from bank officials this week and Friday's German Ifo confidence data bolstered arguments for a rate cut.
Among the slender pickings of European blue chip companies posting results are engineering group MAN and tyre and auto supplier Continental, which report on Tuesday, followed by Europe's largest travel firm TUI and stock exchange operator Deutsche Boerse on Wednesday.
In Italy, bank Capitalia, utility ENEL and luxury goods firm Bulgari all report on Monday, while German reinsurer Hannover Re and French peer Scor step up on Monday and Thursday, respectively.
Heavyweight telecoms operator Deutsche Telekom and Italian oil major ENI detail final 2003 figures on Tuesday after providing preliminary results earlier.
All eyes, however, will be on pivotal US employment numbers when the data is released at 1330 GMT on Friday.
When US non-farm payrolls figures were released a month ago, European stock markets were hovering near 20-month peaks as bullish investors beat on further strong economic improvement.
But a much weaker-than-expected gain of 21,000 in February non-farm payrolls rekindled nervousness about the sustainability of the recovery, sparking a sharp slide in equities.
European benchmarks are heading into the end of the first quarter barely moved from three months ago after a sharp sell-off in March erased powerful gains early in the new year.
Although started by weaker economic data, the slide in equities gathered pace after a series of bombs tore through packed trains in the Spanish capital of Madrid on March 11, killing nearly 200 people. Groups linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network are suspected of carrying out the attack.
Stocks have remained under pressure since then as heightened Middle East tensions and a series of security scares, including the discovery of a suspected bomb on a French train line this week, have steered investors away from riskier stocks towards "safe haven" assets like gold, bonds and the Swiss franc.
Germany's Ifo business confidence index released earlier on Friday, fell to 95.4 from 96.4 in February, the second consecutive monthly decline.
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