European stocks fall; German Ifo, tech sector in focus

Investing.com – European stock markets retreated Monday, starting the new week on a downbeat note as investors awaited the release of a deluge of corporate earnings as well as policy-setting meetings from both the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve.

At 03:05 ET (08:05 GMT), the in Germany dropped 1%, the in France slipped 0.2% and the in the UK fell 0.4%.

German Ifo due ahead of ECB meeting

Attention Monday will be on the release of the later in the session, as investors try to gauge the health of the eurozone’s largest economy ahead of the latest policy-setting meeting of the European Central Bank.

The ECB concludes its latest meeting on Thursday, with officials having the chance to digest the latest growth data from the major European countries, released before the meeting.

Economists widely expect the to slash rates by a quarter of a percentage point at its upcoming policy meeting, after having already slashed borrowing costs four times to address weak growth and cooling inflation in the currency bloc.

The also meets this week, with the US central bank expected to keep interest rates unchanged at the conclusion of its two-day gathering on Wednesday.

Ryanair impresses with earnings

The European quarterly earnings season arrives in full force this week, with results due from the likes of Shell (LON:), LVMH (EPA:), Deutsche Bank (ETR:), Roche (SIX:) and ASML (AS:) throughout the week.

As far as Monday is concerned, Ryanair (IR:) stock rose 2.5% after the low-cost airline reported after-tax profit for the three months to the end of December ahead of expectations, even as it trimmed its forecast for passenger numbers for the next year.

Julius Baer ‘s (SIX:) chairman, Romeo Lacher, is set to step down, as the Swiss bank continued a shake-up of management that began a year ago after it suffered major losses from exposure to collapsed property group Signa.

Switzerland’s testing and inspection group SGS (SIX:) said it had ended talks over a potential $30 billion merger with French rival Bureau Veritas (EPA:).

Additionally, the tech sector, particularly Dutch computer chip equipment maker ASML (AS:), will be in the spotlight as investors weigh the implications of Chinese startup DeepSeek’s release of a rival to ChatGPT – it has been gaining in popularity as it claims to match offerings from rivals such as OpenAI for a fraction of their cost. 

Crude heads lower 

Oil prices fell Monday, with traders nervous following President Trump’s call last week for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to lower crude prices.

By 03:05 ET, the US crude futures (WTI) dropped 0.6% to $74.19 a barrel, while the contract fell 0.6% to $77.08 a barrel.

The crude market was nursing steep losses from last week after Trump declared a national emergency and called for a sharp increase in US energy production, while also calling on the OPEC cartel to bring down crude prices. 

Oil markets were also dented by weak purchasing managers index data from top importer China, which showed local business activity remained under pressure.