European markets to open lower after snapping nine-day winning streak

Karen Gilchrist

European markets are poised to open lower Friday after shares snapped a nine-day winning streak in the previous session as earnings weighed on positive sentiment.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed lower Thursday as earnings misses from Siemens and EasyJet weighed on the index.

Earnings come Friday from Richemont and Engie, while inflation updates are due out of the U.K. and euro zone.

U.S. stock futures were little changed overnight after the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly touched the key 40,000 milestone for the first time.

In Asia-Pacific, markets largely fell Friday, as investors assessed key China data to gauge the state of the world’s second-largest economy.

Richemont sales dips in fourth quarter on weak Asia-Pacific demand

Swiss luxury group Richemont on Friday reported a 1% drop in fourth-quarter sales, adding to a picture of weakening demand across the luxury sector.

The Cartier owner said sales fell to 4.8 billion euros ($5.21 billion) in the three months to March, driven by a slowdown in Asia-Pacific. At constant exchange rates, sales grew 2% over the period, less than the 8% recorded in the previous quarter.

For the full year, group sales rose 3% to an all-time high of 20.6 billion euros.

“We experienced a softening of sales in the fourth quarter in Asia Pacific against challenging comparatives, which was more than offset by higher growth in all the other regions. As we predicted, a sustainable rebound in Chinese demand would take some time,” chairman Johann Rupert said in a statement.

In a separate statement, the company announced Nicolas Bos, CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, as its new group CEO, effective June 1.

— Karen Gilchrist

CNBC Pro: BofA names ‘Asia’s most important stocks’ — and analysts give one over 40% upside

BofA Securities has screened for 20 of Asia’s “most important stocks,” selected from the constituents of the MSCI Asia Pacific Index.

Back-testing shows that the stocks on the investment bank’s screen “would have outperformed in 16 of the last 29 calendar years, and that they tend to outperform in rising markets.”

“In recent years, they would have meaningfully outperformed in 2019-20, but meaningfully underperformed in 2021-22. These are important stocks investors need to get right,” BofA’s analysts said, naming stocks on their screen.

— Amala Balakrishner

CNBC Pro: Meme stocks and more: Analyst names ‘danger zone’ companies to avoid

Meme stocks are in the spotlight this week.

GameStop, and others like AMC, experienced much volatility this week, rallying then tumbling after just two days.

Where do they go from here? One analyst names the stocks in “danger zone” list.

— Weizhen Tan

European markets: Here are the opening calls

European markets are expected to open lower Friday.

The U.K.’s FTSE 100 index is expected to open 12 points lower at 8,416, Germany’s DAX down 36 points at 18,686, France’s CAC 25 points lower at 8,163 and Italy’s FTSE MIB down 105 points at 34,975, according to data from IG.

Earnings are due from Richemont and Engie, while inflation updates are due out of the U.K. and euro zone.

— Karen Gilchrist

Source : cnbc