Investing.com – European stock markets weakened Wednesday, with investors fretting about the increasing number of coronavirus cases worldwide amid fears this will lead to the reintroduction of generalized lockdown measures.

At 3:30 AM ET (0730 GMT), the DAX in Germany traded 0.8% lower, France’s CAC40 fell 0.6%, the U.K.’s FTSE index was down 0.7%.

Stocks in Europe have rallied hard since hitting a low in March, with gains driven by fiscal and central bank stimulus around the globe and a gradual easing of restrictions.  The U.K. announced a major relaxation of restrictions on its crucial service sector on Tuesday.

However, fears are mounting that the removal of these restrictions may have come too quickly and a second wave of the Covid-19 virus is on its way. 

German Health Minister Jens Spahn on Wednesday stressed that the coronavirus remains a risk after the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia on Tuesday put two municipalities back into lockdown following an outbreak at a meatpacking plant.

Still, there remains some optimism about the economic recovery, particularly after Tuesday’s upbeat business surveys, with France a stand-out as lockdown loosening there led to a modest return to growth.

“To some extent, this is obviously a technical rebound. The fact that PMIs are still in contractionary territory illustrates the two messages: a sense of relief that a sharp rebound is possible but at the same time caution against too much optimism,” said analysts at ING, in a research note.

The key economic indicator due for release Wednesday will be the influential German Ifo Business Climate survey for June, at 4:00 AM ET (0800 GMT), which is seen recovering. 

The French index for business confidence surged 18 points to 78, earlier Wednesday, the sharpest increase on record, statistics agency Insee said. 

In corporate news, Dufry (SIX:DUFN) stock climbed 1.5% after the Swiss-based travel retailer said it would slash staffing costs to reflect previously forecast hefty potential sales declines on the back of the coronavirus pandemic.

Atos (PA:ATOS) stock climbed 0.8% after the French information-technology company confirmed its goals for 2020, while maintaining its dividend.

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) stock climbed 0.5% after the Finnish telecom equipment maker announced its new chief executive Pekka Lundmark will join the company on August 1, a month earlier than planned.

Oil edged higher Wednesday, consolidating after losses caused by a second consecutive week of increases in U.S. crude supplies.

The American Petroleum Institute estimated a build of 1.749 million barrels for the week ended June 19 on Tuesday, much bigger than the 300,000 barrel build expected. Attention now turns to the government figures due at 8:30 AM ET (1230 GMT), where a small build is expected.

At 2 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.1% higher at $40.42 a barrel. The international benchmark Brent contract rose 0.84 to $42.80.

Elsewhere, gold futures rose 0.2% to $1,785.55/oz, while EUR/USD traded at 1.1300, down 0.1%.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) will invest as much as $2 billion in a data centre in Poland to deal with cloud services, the Puls Biznesu daily said on Wednesday.

News of the investment follows an announcement by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in May that it will invest $1 billion in a Polish data centre, as the largest economy in the European Union’s eastern wing tries to position itself as a regional technology hub.

“Region Google Cloud in Warsaw is the biggest investment in infrastructure of this type in Poland,” the paper quoted Magdalena Dziewguc, Google Cloud’s business development director in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe, as saying.

“We are getting ready for it to be operational at the beginning of 2021.”

Jadwiga Emilewicz, Poland’s deputy prime minister, told the paper she estimated Google could invest $1.5 billion to $2 billion in the project.

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Asian shares crept to a four-month high on Wednesday as investors remained stubbornly upbeat on the outlook for a re-opening of the global economy even as cases of the coronavirus looked to be accelerating to new peaks.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.39% to reach its highest since early March, though turnover was light.

Japan’s Nikkei firmed 0.1% and Chinese blue chips 0.3%. Caution was still evident elsewhere with E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 off 0.1% and EUROSTOXX 50 futures easing 0.7%.

On Wall Street, the Dow had ended Tuesday 0.5% higher, while the S&P 500 gained 0.43% and the Nasdaq 0.74%.

News on the coronavirus was hardly encouraging with several U.S. states seeing record infections and the death toll in Latin America passing 100,000 on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally.

The European Union is even prepared to bar U.S. travellers because of the surge of cases in the country, putting it in the same category as Brazil and Russia, the New York Times reported.

Yet the market assumes there is a very high bar to shutting down economies again, so the impact on business activity will not be too great – at least as yet.

The dogged optimism about the global economy was supported by upbeat surveys of manufacturing from Europe, with France a stand-out as lockdown loosening there led to a modest return to growth.

That followed solid June readings from much of Asia, though Japan did disappoint.

“One surprise in the recent data has been the resiliency of activity data in emerging Asia even as the global economy slowed sharply and global demand remains below pre-pandemic levels,” said analysts at JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) in a note.

“This outcome largely appears to be due to the tech sector outperforming non-tech, most likely reflecting in part a temporary work-from-home boost to demand.”

The better European data combined with the positive risk mood to keep the U.S. dollar under pressure. Against a basket of major currencies it slipped back to 96.578 from a top of 97.719 at the start of the week.

The euro edged up to $1.1321, having been as low as $1.1167 on Monday, while the dollar eased to 106.47 yen after touching a six-week low of 106.06 at one stage.

“The dollar and risk sentiment are likely to remain broadly negatively correlated, barring the U.S. displaying clear and enduring leadership in the global economic recovery, something hard to square with the grim U.S. news on COVID,” said Ray Attrill, head of FX strategy at NAB.

In commodity markets, the decline in the dollar and endless cheap liquidity from central banks helped lift gold to its highest since October 2012. The metal was last at $1,770 an ounce.

Oil futures eased from four-month highs after U.S. crude inventories rose a surprisingly large 1.7 million barrels last week, according to industry data. That compares with analysts’ expectations for a 300,000-barrel build. U.S. government data will be released on Wednesday. [O/R]

Brent crude futures declined 18 cents to $42.45 a barrel, while U.S. crude fell 23 cents to $40.14.