BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - French stocks rose sharply on Monday as investors cheered news of a slowdown in deaths and infections from the coronavirus in Europe.
While Italy reported the fewest deaths in more than two weeks, France's daily death count from the novel coronavirus dropped in the past 24 hours and admissions into intensive care also slowed. Elsewhere in Spain, the death rate fell for the third straight day.
In the United States, President Donald Trump warned the country could be headed into its 'toughest' weeks, but expressed hope the country was seeing a 'levelling off' of the virus crisis.
The benchmark CAC 40 was up 131 points, or 3.15 percent, at 4,285 after declining 1.6 percent on Friday.
Banks BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole rose over 2 percent while Societe Generale jumped over 6 percent.
Peugeot shares surged 8.5 percent. Peugeot-owner PSA announced a further 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) worth of loans on top of existing reserves of the same amount.
Renault shares were up more than 8 percent.
In economic releases, Eurozone investor confidence fell to a record low in April as the coronavirus pandemic spread across the globe, results of a survey by the behavioral research institute Sentix showed.
The Sentix investor confidence index shed 25.8 points to reach an all-time low of -42.9. Economists had forecast a reading of -30.3.
'Without exception, all regions of the world are in a deep recession,' Sentix said. 'Never before has the assessment of the current situation collapsed so sharply in all regions of the world within one month.'
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