European shares bounced on Friday on hopes that a vaccine for COVID-19 could be available in the US before the end of the year, with a clutch of upbeat quarterly earnings also lifting sentiment after a torrid week.
Pfizer Inc said it could file for US authorization of the COVID-19 vaccine it is developing with German partner BioNTech AG as early as next month.
The news powered global stock markets and helped lift the pan-European STOXX 600 by 1.3 percent in its best session in nearly three weeks.
The benchmark stock index nevertheless ended Friday with its first weekly decline in three as a resurgence in COVID-19 cases across Europe stoked fears about more sweeping lockdowns. The index fell 0.8 percent for the week.
London and Paris, Europe’s two richest cities, are again living under the shadow of state-imposed restrictions.
“This raises the very real fear that what is a stop-gap measure actually turns out to be something slightly longer term, which could see the collapse of hundreds of businesses,” CMC Markets UK market analyst Michael Hewson said.
The new restrictions could also stifle business activity, derail a nascent economic rebound and further pressure European stock markets, which have lagged a recovery in their US peers.
While the S&P 500 has gained about 8 percent this year, the European STOXX 600 is still down nearly 12 percent.
Adding to investor uncertainty, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday said that it was time to prepare for a no-trade deal Brexit unless the EU fundamentally changed course in trade talks.
London’s FTSE 100 still rose 1.5 percent, down 1.6 percent weekly, as analysts said the majority of market participants expected a deal to be reached.
In company news, Thyssenkrupp AG surged 10.8 percent as Liberty Steel Group, founded by commodities tycoon Sanjeev Gupta, said it had made a non-binding offer for the company’s steel unit.
LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE jumped 7.3 percent as recovering sales of Louis Vuitton handbags helped it contain the fallout from the coronavirus crisis in the third quarter.
Shares of other luxury goods makers, including Moncler SpA and Burberry Group PLC, rose more than 3 percent.
Telecoms and real estate were the only two European sectors to end lower on the day.
German shares gained 1.6 percent, clawing back more than half their losses from the previous session, with Daimler surging 5.5 percent after the luxury automaker posted forecast-beating third-quarter results.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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