European Stock Futures are Looking for  Direction

European stock futures are struggling for direction on Tuesday ahead of quarterly earnings reports from several major U.S. banks.

In Germany DAX future contract dropped 0.1% as of 2:05 AM ET (06:05 GMT). The CAC 40 futures in France fell 0.1%. In the U.K. The FTSE 100 futures contract declined 0.2%.

The European markets received a largely positive handover from Asia, helped by news that China’s exports surpassed expectations in June.

The data indicates a recovery in global demand as vaccination programs helped to reopen economies around the world. Exports in dollar terms jumped 32.2% last month from a year earlier, compared with 27.9% growth in May.

But a lot of the focus on Tuesday will be on quarterly earnings that are due this week from several banks. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan will release the information later in the afternoon. These numbers could be used as a measure of the health of the U.S. economy as it reopens. Across the ocean, banks were in the news for the wrong reasons as Moody’s Investor Service decided to cut the main debt rating of Credit Suisse. The main debt rating of Credit Suisse is not longer Aa3.

Elsewhere, German consumer inflation advanced 0.4% on the month in June, a rise of 2.3% on the year. It fell from 2.5% in May to 2.3% in June.

An update regarding U.S. inflation data is due later today. The inflation data will be in focus as investors would like to measure whether recent price pressures in the U.S. persist.

European stock futures and Covid-19

When talking about European stocks futures, it is hard not to mention the Covid-19. The pandemic is a very serious issue, and investors are monitoring the information about the pandemic. Less than a week ago, Japan declared a state of emergency for Tokyo. The state of emergency came into force on July 12.

On Monday, the country recorded 1,506 new cases, up about 1.5-fold from a week before. The country’s capital continued to see an increase in new daily Covid-19 infections. Tokyo reported 830 new cases on Tuesday.

The number of hospitalizations continues to rise in some parts of the world. More and more people have to seek medical care in countries where vaccination rates are low. Another issue is the highly contagious Delta variant. Low vaccination rates and Delta variant created numerous challenges in many countries.