LONDON — European stocks nudged higher on Tuesday, with investors focusing on an emerging battle between vaccine maker AstraZeneca and the EU, and on political uncertainty in Italy.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 hovered 0.3% above the flatline in early trade, with financial services adding 1.3% while travel and leisure stocks fell 0.9%.
British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca has been accused by the EU of not doing enough to resolve a dispute over how many doses it will be able to supply to the bloc. The AstraZeneca vaccine has not yet been approved by the European Medicines Agency but is expected to be imminent. AstraZeneca said last week that it is facing production problems.
In other coronavirus news, Moderna said Monday it’s accelerating work on a Covid-19 booster shot for the recently discovered variant in South Africa. The firm’s researchers said its current coronavirus vaccine appears to work against the two highly transmissible strains found in the U.K. and South Africa.
Italian shares will be watched closely on Tuesday as a new political crisis has come to the fore. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is expected to resign Tuesday after a morning cabinet meeting, and will seek to lead a new mandate. The move comes after weeks of tensions between Conte and Matteo Renzi, the head of a junior coalition party in the government.
Elsewhere, U.S. stock futures fell slightly Tuesday morning as Wall Street geared up for the heart of corporate earnings seasons; General Electric, Verizon and Johnson & Johnson are slated to report results before the bell, while tech giant Microsoft will announce its fiscal second-quarter earnings after the bell. In Asia-Pacific, stocks declined in Tuesday trade.
Earnings remain in focus, with UBS on Tuesday reporting a net income of $1.71 billion for the fourth quarter of 2020, a 137% jump on the year before and vastly outstripping analyst expectations of $967 million, according to Refinitiv. The world’s largest wealth manager’s stock climbed 4% in early trade.
Biggest movers
Spanish utility Naturgy saw its shares surge more than 15% in early trade after the IFM Global Infrastructure Fund made a 5 billion euro ($6.06 billion) offer for a stake in the company.
EQT shares climbed more than 10% after the Swedish private equity firm beat full-year profit expectations and agreed to buy Exeter Property Group.
At the bottom of the European blue chip index, Rolls-Royce shares fell more than 8% after the airplane engine manufacturer revised down its 2021 outlook amid fresh Covid-19 travel restrictions.
