(News Bulletin 247) – The European stock markets start this second quarter overwhelmingly in the green (+0.8% in London, +0.4% in Paris, +0.1% in Frankfurt), driven in particular by stocks of the energy sector.

The titles of oil and gas giants are indeed on the rise, like Shell and BP (+4% each) in London, TotalEnergies (+4%) in Paris, ENI (+3% ) in Milan or Repsol (+2%) in Madrid, which are taking full advantage of a surge in oil prices.

‘OPEC+ unexpectedly announced a cut in production from May’, points Deutsche Bank, recalling that oil prices have fallen every month during the last quarter, leading to their worst first quarter performance since 2020 .

‘It will take some time to see the exact impact on global prices as demand concerns persist, but this is another potential factor putting upward pressure on inflation’, warns the German bank.

In the meantime, this announcement puts the S&P Global PMI index for the manufacturing industry in the euro zone in the background, which fell from 48.5 in February to 47.3 in March, thus signaling a further deterioration in the situation in the sector.

“The decline in manufacturers’ costs has been accompanied by a slowdown in the increase in selling prices, a trend which should subsequently lead to lower consumer prices,” said S&P Global.

Other macroeconomic data on the week’s schedule include the composite PMI indices, industrial production in Germany, producer prices in the euro zone and the US employment report.

In securities news, Assa Abloy fell nearly 2% on the OMX, weighed down by a deterioration in opinion at Oddo from ‘outperformance’ to ‘neutral’ on the title of the Swedish supplier of door opening solutions .

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