EU stocks opened higher Monday

EU markets opened higher on Monday morning, helped by gains in Asia as major Chinese cities began to reopen after a nearly two-month COVID-19 lockdown.

London’s FTSE 100 futures surged by 0.46% this morning with Germany’s DAX futures following at a 0.32% climb and France’s CAC 40 futures up by 0.49%.

Major Asian stocks also witnessed gains on Monday morning with Japan’s Nikkei up by 2.19% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rising by 2.03%.

Germany and Spain are due to release their consumer inflation data later on Monday which will be followed by the latest Eurozone inflation flash estimate which will go live on Tuesday.

Oil prices climbed on Monday

Oil prices climbed on Monday as traders continued to anticipate when the European Union would reach an agreement on banning Russian oil imports. EU diplomats are set to meet on Monday and Tuesday once again, to discuss a sixth package deal of sanctions against Russia after failing to reach a unanimous decision on Sunday.

Brent Crude futures contract for July was up 0.74% Monday morning valued at $116.37 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were also higher by 0.84% costing $116.01 a barrel.

Gold futures started week higher

Gold futures also started Monday on a positive note surging by nearly 0.50% to $1,860.10.

This was a positive outlook seeing how gold had hit a three-month low of $1,786.60 per ounce on 16 May.

Silver also moved up on Monday morning rising by 0.72%. It was followed by platinum which was up by 0.66% and palladium which surged by nearly 1%.

EU diplomats to meet on Monday, discuss ban on Russia oil

Top European Union diplomats are meeting once again on Monday in an attempt to finally agree on a sanctions package deal on Russian oil imports following failed talks on Sunday.

The EU foreign policy chief, Joseph Borell, sounded hopeful in an interview with France Info noting that the leaders of the 27 EU countries will be able to come to a unanimous agreement after the two-day meetings.

EU ambassadors were unsuccessful in reaching a unanimous vote on Sunday, however, their deal did take a new turn. EU diplomats are now proposing a compromise as opposed to banning completely Russian oil imports. They are suggesting a bloc ban on Russian oil arriving in tankers but will allow pipeline imports which would see Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic continue to be supplied.

“After Russia’s attack on Ukraine, we saw what can happen when Europe stands united… With a view to the summit tomorrow, let’s hope it continues like this. But it is already starting to crumble and crumble again,” Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, said on Sunday as quoted by Reuters.

EU leaders have been struggling to agree on the sixth package of sanctions against Russia for a month, which are strongly boycotted by landlocked Hungary which heavily relies on Russian oil imports.

Toyota reported a miss in April global production

The popular Japanese car firm, Toyota Motor, reported a miss in its April global production target on Monday blaming the COVID-19 pandemic which led to parts shortages.

“Both sales and production fell below the previous year’s level due to impact from the spread of COVID-19 both in Japan and overseas, as well as the parts supply shortage caused by the increased demand for semiconductors.

“We revised production plans to be more reasonably in line with recent realities and positioned the period from April to June as an “intentional pause.” The production plan for April was formulated based on this approach, but due to the impact from the lockdown in Shanghai, China, production was lower than planned,” the automaker said in a statement.

Toyota produced 692,259 vehicles last month, a 9.1% drop from the same month last year, and falling short of an earlier plan of making about 750,000 vehicles worldwide.

Last week the firm downgraded its global production plan for June to around 800,000 vehicles as COVID-19 lockdowns in China continue to affect the firm.

Despite the negative news, Toyota Motor stocks (TM) were up 0.79% on Monday.

Beijing, Shanghai commence reopen

China’s major cities Beijing and Shanghai began to lift COVID-19 restrictions over the weekend as local positive cases started to decrease.

The lifting of restrictions comes about two months after Shanghai, the country’s largest city, ordered people to stay indoors for mass virus testing.

Businesses will be allowed to reopen with no other restrictions starting on Wednesday.

The good news are filling companies and investors with positive sentiment as certain firms struggled with production and their stocks were performing lower.

Top cryptocurrencies were bullish Monday, BTC back over $30,000

Top cryptocurrencies were bullish on Monday with bitcoin (BTC) surging back up to over $30,000, up by 5.42% in the last 24 hours.

Ethereum (ETH) followed the surge skyrocketing by 6.66% in the last day. BNB followed with a 5.87% rise, Cordana (ADA) was up 11.71% and Solana (SOL) rose by 9.41%. The popular Elon Musk-endorsed memetoken Dogecoin (DOGE) was up 5.79%.

Note, cryptocurrency CFD trading is restricted in the UK for all retail clients.