LONDON - World stock markets jumped on Monday, encouraged by a slowdown in coronavirus-related deaths and new cases, though a delay in talks between Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut supply sent oil tumbling again.

Equity investors were encouraged as the death toll from the virus slowed across major European nations including France and Italy.

London’s FTSE raced up 2 percent, indexes in Paris and Milan rose 3 percent, and Germany’s DAX gained more than 4 percent after Japan’s Nikkei finished with similar gains overnight. 

There was plenty of news to demonstrate just how brutal the virus has been - eye-popping plunges in car sales and air travel in Europe, Britain’s prime minister being hospitalised and Japan preparing to declare a state of emergency.

However, the markets appeared hopeful.

Wall Street S&P 500 emini futures were up almost 3.5 percent and most major volatility gauges dropped too, buoyed by comments from US President Donald Trump that his country was also seeing a “levelling off” of the crisis.

“What is driving the market is the evidence that the number of new cases has started to turn the corner,” said Rabobank’s Head of Macro Strategy Elwin de Groot.

As well as a slowdown in deaths in Italy, he said, improvements were starting to become visible in Spain, and even in the United States there had been a little bit of a let-up.

“When you see that happening you can start gauging when lockdowns can start to be gradually lifted. That gives a little bit more visibility and that is vital,” he added, although he stressed there were still huge uncertainties and risks.

As has been the pattern for most of the year, commodity markets saw the day’s other big moves.

Brent crude fell as much as US$4 after Saudi Arabia and Russia, who have been at loggerheads this year over production, pushed back a planned meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, until Thursday.

OPEC+ is working on a deal to cut oil production by about 10 percent of world supply, or 10 million barrels per day (bpd), in what member states expect to be an unprecedented global effort.

The countries are “very, very close” to a deal on cuts, one of Russia’s top oil negotiators, Kirill Dmitriev, who heads the nation’s wealth fund, told CNBC.

But Rystad Energy’s head of oil markets Bjornar Tonhaugen said even if the group agreed to cut up to 15 million bpd, “it will only be enough to scratch the surface of the more than 23 million bpd supply overhang predicted for April 2020”.

EMERGENCY CALLS

In currency markets, the yen fell 0.4 percent to 108.92 against the dollar and weakened against other major currencies as Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government would declare a state of emergency as early as Tuesday to curb a spike in coronavirus infections.

The dollar gained a little ground against the euro, but the pound recovered, having dipped 0.4 percent overnight after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital for tests as he was still suffering symptoms of the coronavirus.

Yields on safe-haven US and German government bonds crept higher in fixed income markets, also reflecting the slightly brighter tone in world markets and despite some painful data.

Investor morale in the euro zone fell to an all-time low in April and the currency bloc’s economy is now in deep recession due to the coronavirus, which is “holding the world economy in a stranglehold”, a Sentix survey showed.

Orders for German-made goods had already dropped 1.4 percent in February, other data showed. France said it was facing its worst slump since World War Two, British car sales plunged 40 percent last month and Norwegian Air’s traffic plummeted 60 percent.

“Never before has the assessment of the current situation collapsed so sharply in all regions of the world within one month,” Sentix managing director Patrick Hussy said.

“The situation is ... much worse than in 2009,” Hussy said, referring to the global financial crisis. “Economic forecasts to date underestimate the shrinking process. The recession will go much deeper and longer.”

CRUCIAL TEST

Wall Street looked eager for an early rally, with futures pointing 3.5 percent higher after New York, the US’s biggest hot spot, reported on Sunday that for the first time in a week virus-related deaths had fallen slightly.

In Asia stocks had also proven bullish. Australia’s benchmark index rose 4.3 percent and Japan’s Nikkei added 4.25 percent after a slow start, while South Korea’s KOSPI index climbed 3.85 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was 2.2 percent higher.

That sent MSCI’s broadest index of Asian shares outside of Japan up 2 percent, for its best performance in more than a week.

Markets in mainland China were closed for a public holiday.

Worryingly, the number of new coronavirus cases jumped in China on Sunday, while the number of asymptomatic cases surged too as Beijing continued to struggle to extinguish the outbreak despite drastic containment efforts.

Singapore, which had won international praise for its handling of the virus over the last few months, had to close schools and most workplaces on Friday after it saw record jumps in new infections.

“Focus in markets will now turn to the path out of lockdown and to what extent containment measures can be lifted without risking a second wave of infections,” National Australia Bank analyst Tapas Strickland wrote in a note.

“Key to a strong rebound in China will be the ongoing lifting of containment measures, with Wuhan – the epicentre of the outbreak – set to lift containment measures on April 8.”