European stocks started the week with a positive lift on Monday, with most sectors seeing gains as market participants moved back toward buying higher-risk assets after the market ended the previous week on a slightly down note.
The overall pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.4%, remaining close to an all-time high, with major markets in Spain and London also advancing. The small dip on Friday was due to the overall market following Wall Street’s losses after the US chipmaker Broadcom raised new worries about a possible AI market bubble.
However, the market saw a broad recovery today, with strong gains in heavyweight sectors like banks and energy stocks, both up more than 1%. The only sector to decline was healthcare, dragged down by a nearly 5% drop in French drugmaker Sanofi. This drop happened because the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to delay its decision on Sanofi’s multiple sclerosis drug, tolebrutinib, which failed a main goal in a related trial.
Separately, in geopolitical news, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy offered over the weekend to drop the country’s goal of joining the NATO military alliance after talks with the U.S. in Berlin, a move seen as a potential compromise for peace talks. This news caused shares in major defense companies like Rheinmetall and Renk to fall.
On the FX front, the Japanese yen strengthened on Monday, rising 0.5% to 155.08 per dollar, as investors looked ahead to an important week that will feature interest rate decisions from major central banks and crucial economic data from the US that will influence the Federal Reserve’s policy decisions next year.
In contrast, the New Zealand dollar weakened, falling 0.36% to 0.5781, after the country’s central bank head dismissed expectations for further rate hikes next year.
Elsewhere, the British pound eased slightly by 0.13% to 1.3364, and the euro dropped 0.06% to 1.1733.
The Australian dollar, which is often used as a stand-in for the Chinese yuan, also slipped 0.17% to 0.6643.
Despite this, the Chinese yuan itself actually strengthened, hitting a high of 7.0497 per dollar against the US currency. .
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