European Stocks Higher; UBS Shines on Profit Surge By Investing.com – Investing.com

European Stocks Higher; UBS Shines on Profit Surge By Investing.com – Investing.com

© Reuters.

By Peter Nurse 

Investing.com - European stock markets pushed higher Tuesday, rebounding after the previous session’s sharp losses, helped by a strong quarterly update from Swiss banking giant UBS.

At 3:45 AM ET (0845 GMT), the in Germany traded 1% higher, the in France rose 1.3% and the U.K.’s climbed 1.1%.

Tuesday’s gains only partially recover some on Monday’s rout, when the DAX closing down 2.6%, the CAC 40 down 2.5% and the FTSE 100 2.3% lower, amid fears the latest surge of Covid-19 cases, led by the highly contagious delta variant, will prompt governments to resume tight lockdowns and curb economic activity.

These markets had rallied strongly in the first half of the year as investors bet that the rollout of Covid-19 vaccination programs would help economies to recover strongly as mobility restrictions were lifted. However, the increase in new cases, firstly in Asia but increasingly in Europe and the U.S., has changed that narrative.  

Helping the tone Tuesday was the news that UBS (SIX:) reported a 63% jump in quarterly net profit to $2 billion, up from the $1.23 billion reported for the same period last year, helped by what the Swiss wealth manager