Even in the Asian session, we had unsatisfactory economic reports regarding Japanese GDP. The buyers came back to equity markets as the Nikkei 225 closed on positive.
World stocks and bond yields rose on Monday, lifted by a re-emergence of so-called "Trump trades" as investors bet that the U.S. president's tax reform plans will boost economic growth and corporate profits will ignore the negative economic report from Japan and give a positive sentiment for the day.
Investors were also confronted by the two-day U.S.-Japan summit held over the weekend, apparently having ended smoothly without President Donald Trump talking tough on trade, currency, and security issues. "Markets have continued Friday's upbeat theme," said Kathleen Brooks, research director at City Index in London.
As the European session started unfolding, a wave of positive flow of news and forecasts from European Commission came, stating that Brexit's hit to growth will be milder than expected. This helped equities to stay in positive territory.
The EU’s executive arm revised up its estimate for U.K. economic expansion to 1.5 percent in 2017 from a 1 percent prediction in November. It left its forecast for 2018 unchanged at 1.2 percent.
Across Europe, all indices stayed in positive territory with DAX passing the 61.8% Fibonacci level at 11730 right before the lunchtime London time and going strongly to 11800.