European stocks went up on Monday morning, mainly because bank stocks did well. Investors are getting ready for a big week of meetings by central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, which could decide to cut interest rates.
Shares of the French company Rubis also jumped 6.7% after a report came out saying that two companies, CVC Capital Partners and Trafigura, are making offers to buy it. Rubis is a fuel company worth about $3.5 billion.
In France, the stock market went up by 0.4%, with French banks like SocGen, BNP Paribas, and Credit Agricole all seeing their share prices increase.
This happened despite the fact that Fitch downgraded France’s credit rating on Friday. This downgrade could make it harder for the new Prime Minister, Sebastien Lecornu, to create a new budget.
On the FX front, the euro weakened slightly against the dollar, trading at 1.1729.
Meanwhile, the British pound and Australian dollar both rose. The pound increased to 1.3565, and the Australian dollar went up to 0.6663, getting close to its highest value in 10 months, which it reached on Friday.
The Japanese yen also became a bit stronger, trading at 147.44 per U.S. dollar, as investors anticipate the Bank of Japan’s policy meeting later this week. The New Zealand dollar also saw a small gain, rising to 0.5964.
Even though China released disappointing economic news—showing that its factory production and retail sales had their weakest growth since last year—the Chinese yuan still saw a slight increase against the US dollar, reaching 7.1213 per dollar. This was mainly because the US dollar was a bit weaker overall.
Currency Power Balance
