‘From extreme pessimism to wild optimism’: European stocks surge as markets move past trade war fears

Bea Martinez/Reuters

• European stocks appreciate sharply as trade war fears subside.
• Europe’s gains follow a huge session in the USA on Monday, when the Dow Jones saw the third biggest single day gain in points terms in its history.
• Markets have moved “from extreme pessimism to wild optimism,” according to one strategist.

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LONDON — Stocks across Europe are climbing sharply on Tuesday as investors’ fears of a trade-war between the US and China continue to subside.

Europe’s gains follow a huge session in the USA on Monday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average saw the third biggest single day gain in points terms in its history. Monday’s gains came after stocks saw their worst one-week drop in more than two years, falling 5.9%.

Those gains have now spread into Europe, with all major indices on the continent strongly higher after just over an hour of trading. Here’s the scoreboard as of 9.10 a.m. BST (4.10 a.m. ET):

• Britain’s FTSE 100 — up 1.45% at 6,988 points
• Germany’s DAX — up 1.4% at 11, 952
• France’s CAC 40 — up 1.21% at 5,127
• Italy’s FTSE MIB — up 1.39% at 22,318
• Spain’s IBEX 35 — up 0.82% at 9,458

“Shifts from extreme pessimism to wild optimism are driving markets today,” Hussein Sayed, chief market strategist at FXTM said in an email.