By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - European stock markets are seen opening higher Tuesday, as investors welcome the end to a contentious U.S. presidential election campaign and hope for an end to political uncertainty.
At 2:05 AM ET (0705 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.5% higher, CAC 40 futures in France climbed 0.8% and the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. rose 0.7%.
Polls open Tuesday, although nearly 100 million voters have already cast their ballots, to decide whether President Donald Trump or Democratic rival Joe Biden will occupy the White House for the next four years. The latest surveys suggest Biden has a substantial lead nationally, but the polling in several of the key swing states looks a lot closer.
“Assuming the opinion polls are correct and Joe Biden wins a convincing victory with the Democrats retaining the House of Representatives and gaining control of the Senate this is likely to be the scenario that delivers the swiftest, most aggressive fiscal stimulus,” said analysts at ING, in a research note.
However, the picture may not be this clear as a winner may not be declared for several days, owing to mail-in vote counting. And that declaration might still be contested in court.
Meanwhile, Italy became the latest European country to introduce tougher containment measures to take on the spread of the Covid-19 virus, including curbs on travel between the worst-hit regions and a nighttime curfew.
European leaders are desperately trying to halt the surge in the virus before the Christmas holiday season. The U.K., France and Germany, among others, have introduced partial shutdowns in the last few days.
Aside from the U.S. political developments, investors are braced for an eventful week with central bank meetings by the Federal Reserve and Bank of England, as well as the release of U.S. jobs data for October.
In corporate news, BNP Paribas SA (PA:BNPP) is likely to be in focus after the French bank’s debt and equity trading beat estimates while also posting lower-than-expected bad-loan provisions.
Oil prices edged lower Tuesday, despite talk that Russia could hold back on increasing production in the new year. The market is struggling with more lockdowns in Europe in the wake of mounting coronavirus cases and rising supply from Libya.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak met with the top managers of Russian oil companies to discuss a possible rolling over of oil output restrictions into 2021, Reuters reported Monday.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, including Russia, are due to increase supply by two million barrels per day in January, but are now under pressure to look at this decision due to the weak nature of the crude market.
U.S. crude futures traded 0.2% lower at $36.75 a barrel, while the international benchmark Brent contract fell 0.4% to $38.82.
Elsewhere, gold futures rose 0.1% to $1,893.45/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.2% lower at 1.1659.