
European stocks climb on hopes of easing US-China trade tensions
The pan-European STOXX 600 index (.STOXX), opens new tab rose 0.3%, as of 0708 GMT, with all regional bourses trading higher, led by a 0.5% gain in Germany's benchmark DAX index (.GDAXI), opens new tab.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday predicted import tariffs on Beijing of 145% would likely come down as officials from the world's top two economies gear up for negotiations in Switzerland.
Washington will roll out dozens of trade deals over the next month, but a 10% tariff imposed on most countries will likely stay, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC, as the U.S. announced a limited bilateral trade agreement with the UK.
The STOXX 600 index has climbed about 13.7% from its early April trough on hopes that the U.S. will strike deals to avert a damaging trade war. European assets have also benefited from investment flows away from the United States.
Commerzbank shares (CBKG.DE), opens new tab dipped 0.2%, even as the German lender's first-quarter net profit growth beat expectations.
Sonova (SOON.S), opens new tab climbed 5.8% after the Swiss hearing aids maker forecast higher sales and profitability for its 2025/26 fiscal year.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Reuters
24 minutes ago
- Reuters
Breakingviews - Trump's degraded data is worse than book-cooking
WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Donald Trump's stance on Covid-19 turned out to be a prelude for his second term. The U.S. president, who in 2020 argued that 'If we stopped testing right now, we'd have very few cases' of the coronavirus, is applying this logic to environmental, health, and - with the firing of the top Labor Department statistician — economic data. With presumably committed professional staff still in place and alternative data sources available, the main risk of isn't fake, rosy data — it's that firms, investors and policymakers will see pillars of the market crumble. The Bureau of Labor Statistics each month estimates jobs created in the prior period and updates its two previous estimates. Glum numbers on Friday prompted Trump to shoot the messenger. Following a report that 73,000 jobs were added in July, combined with a reduction of 258,000 for May and June's numbers, the president fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer. His argument that the employment survey is biased, and that revisions were tilted in favor of former President Joe Biden, does not survive under scrutiny. The agency revised, opens new tab down job growth by 818,000 during 2024's presidential election—hardly positive news for an incumbent administration. While this revision was large, volatility is unsurprising amid a trade war and immigration restrictionism. This president is already dismantling other research bodies, whether at the Environmental Protection Agency, or the carbon-tracking Mauna Loa observatory, or advisory boards at the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control. Companies and whole sectors, like insurance and pharmaceuticals, rely on government data for myriad uses: carbon markets, flood insurance calculations, automaker emissions compliance, solar energy output projections, disaster planning and resilience, creditworthiness for infrastructure projects, and more. There is no explicit promise to outright cook the books. Nonetheless, any threat to the integrity of this data degrades a vast infrastructure supporting modern markets, built up over more than a century. A ham-fisted push to skew the numbers would probably be self-destructive, drawing skepticism from outside professionals. Signals like resignations of remaining career staff will be clear. And, simply put, people know whether they have a job or not. Studies from countries that have manipulated official data, like Argentina, opens new tab, show that consumers don't trust fake figures, creating black markets to exploit any spread between fantasy and reality. Even without active sabotage, outdated practices may have slid in this direction by accident: officials warned, opens new tab that the BLS needs a refresh, including by jettisoning ever-less-reliable phone surveys and favoring real-time digital sources like job postings or credit card data. Those worries now get an extra political dimension, no matter what happens. Follow Gabriel Rubin on Bluesky, opens new tab and LinkedIn, opens new tab.


Reuters
24 minutes ago
- Reuters
Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio urges Trump to reveal why he fired top labor official
Aug 4 (Reuters) - Investor Ray Dalio said on Monday he, too, would likely have fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he "believes the data is not good", but urged U.S. President Donald Trump to disclose the reasoning behind her removal. In a post on social media platform X, Dalio - founder of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates - said leaders "manipulating numbers" to suit their political objectives could be a big problem, echoing growing concern around the quality of economic data. Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer last week, accusing her of rigging the jobs figures, but did not provide evidence of the alleged manipulation. "It would be good if President Trump made his thinking clear," Dalio said. Critics have warned Trump's move could erode trust in official U.S. economic data, with chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli saying the risks of politicizing the data collection process should not be overlooked. Trump said on Sunday he would announce a new BLS commissioner within three or four days. Dalio said the method of calculating estimates for employment numbers was "obsolete and error-prone" and called for big changes to the way government assesses what is going on with the economy. "The huge revisions in Friday's employment numbers are symptomatic of this, especially because the revisions brought the numbers toward private estimates that were in fact much better," he said in his post. Dalio handed over control of Bridgewater to a new generation of investors in 2022 and has sold his remaining stake in the firm.


Reuters
24 minutes ago
- Reuters
Naturgy to sell 5.5% of shares as part of plan to return to main indexes
MADRID, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Spanish power utility Naturgy ( opens new tab said on Monday it would sell about 5.5% of its shares through an accelerated bookbuild and a bilateral sale as part of its plan to increase its free float and return to the main stock market indexes. The accelerated bookbuild, which began on Monday, aims to sell 2% of the company's shares, while the bilateral sale to an unnamed international financial institution would account for 3.5% of the company's capital, Naturgy said in a statement. The operations would increase Naturgy's free float - or shares available to the public for trading - to 15%, which the company has previously said should be enough to achieve its goal of returning to the main indexes. Naturgy in February said it would buy back almost 2.5 billion euros of its own shares to then resell them in the market after receiving the backing of its four main shareholders.