LONDON — European stocks are expected to open slightly higher on Monday, reflecting broadly positive trade in global markets overnight.

Germany’s DAX is expected to open 4 points higher at 15,842, France’s CAC 40 up 3 points at 6,680 and Italy’s FTSE MIB 21 points higher at 26,006, according to IG. U.K. markets are closed for a public holiday.

A positive start to the trading week in the final days of August reflects sentiment elsewhere, with U.S. stock futures steady in overnight trading on Sunday, and shares higher in Asia-Pacific.

It’s expected that U.S. stocks could stay range-bound until the release of August’s jobs report on Friday, however. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect 750,000 jobs were created in August and the unemployment rate fell to 5.2%.

Last week, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite closed at all-time highs on Friday as investors breathed a sigh of relief after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled bond tapering could start this year, but the central bank is in no rush to hike interest rates. In Asia-Pacific overnight, shares rose as investors looked ahead to the release of Chinese food delivery giant Meituan’s earnings.

In other Chinese tech developments, Beijing is reportedly looking at new rules that would restrict domestic internet firms from going public in the U.S., according to the Wall Street Journal.

There are no major European earnings releases on Monday but data releases in the region include preliminary inflation readings from Germany and Spain for August and the latest euro zone economic sentiment and business climate data.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street ended higher in a late-summer, light volume rally on Tuesday as the FDA’s full approval of a COVID-19 vaccine on Monday and the absence of negative catalysts kept risk appetite alive ahead of the much-anticipated Jackson Hole Symposium.

All three major U.S. stock indexes advanced higher, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closing at all-time closing highs.The session marked the S&P 500’s 50th record high close so far this year.

Tech and tech-adjacent megacaps were once again doing the heavy lifting, but economically sensitive cyclicals and smallcaps outperformed the broader market.

“Investors are looking at the horizon at the big Jackson Hole meeting on the horizon,” Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL Financial in Charlotte, North Carolina, referring to the Federal Reserve’s annual economic symposium on Friday. “But for now the feel-good from yesterday’s vaccine news is still in the air.”

The Food and Drug Administration’s full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Monday fueled optimism over economic recovery which spilled into Tuesday’s session.

Travel and leisure sectors, associated with economic re-engagement, outperformed the broader market. The S&P 1500 Airline and Hotel/Restaurant/Leisure indexes gained up 3.7% and 1.6%, respectively.

“We have energy, retail, travel, leisure, financials, and small caps all doing well today,” Detrick said. “And that’s a sign that the reopening is alive and well.”

Recent economic indicators suggest the recovery from the most abrupt recession in U.S. history is headed in the right direction, but not to the extent that is likely to prompt the Fed to tighten its dovish monetary policy.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is due to meet with other world bank leaders when the Jackson Hole Symposium convenes later this week, and his remarks will be closely parsed for any clues regarding the Fed’s tapering of asset purchases and hiking key interest rates.

The event will take place virtually and not in person due to the spread of COVID-19 in the county, which has reduced expectations that any major announcement will be made at the event. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 30.55 points, or 0.09%, to 35,366.26, the S&P 500 gained 6.7 points, or 0.15%, to 4,486.23 and the Nasdaq Composite added 77.15 points, or 0.52%, to 15,019.80.

Energy was the top gainer among the 11 major sectors in the S&P 500, boosted by the continued rally in crude prices. Best Buy Co Inc jumped 8.3% after the electronics retailer beat analyst earnings expectations and raised its full year sales forecast. U.S.-listed shares of China-based e-commerce platform Pinduoduo Inc surged 22.2% after reporting its first ever quarterly profit.

JD.com gained 14.4% in the wake of the Chinese online retailer’s remarks on Monday that it does not expect any business impact from a wave of regulations hitting the industry at home. Other shares of Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges were bouncing back as well, with the Invesco Golden Dragon ETF jumping 8.0%.

Cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks Inc advanced 18.6% as brokerages raised their price targets following its full-year forecast beat. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 2.17-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.82-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 28 new 52-week highs and one new low; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 96 new highs and 37 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 8.97 billion shares, compared with the 9.08 billion average over the last 20 trading days.

Reporting by Stephen Culp; Additional reporting by Devik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Marguerita Choy

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has pledged to push ahead with his plans to reform the economy, in spite of the heavy burden that COVID-19 has imposed on the country since the start of the pandemic

In a national address marking the country’s 76th anniversary of independence yesterday, the leader, often known as Jokowi, acknowledged the economic burden imposed by the virus, but said that “it must not hinder the process of structural reforms of our economy.”

“Amid today’s disruptive world, the spirit to change, the spirit to make changes and the spirit to innovate have become the foundation to build an advanced Indonesia,” Jokowi said in his speech. “With the COVID-19 pandemic, the acceleration of innovation has become an integrated part of our everyday lives.”

Since May, Indonesia has been hit hard by the Delta variant of COVID-19. At its peak last month, the country was recording 50,000 new cases per day, more than five times the figures in June, and sick people overwhelmed hospitals or died at home or while awaiting treatment. The country has now recorded a total of 3.8 million cases and 118,833 fatalities, although these are widely considered severe undercounts due to the country’s limited testing and contact tracing measures.

The deadly impact of the virus has had its inevitable economic component. Last year, Indonesia’s economy contracted for the first time since the Asian financial crash of 1997-98, and while the country recorded a 7 percent rebound in the second quarter of this year, new restrictions are likely to once again depress growth.

In this context, Jokowi said that his agenda remained focused on structural reforms designed “to promote inclusive and sustainable economic development.” Repeating the promises made at the beginning of his second term, he added that development of “quality human capital” and infrastructure development will remain priorities, the latter a hallmark of his seven years in power.

The Indonesian leader also expressed his hope that reform could help Indonesia initiate a transition toward a more sustainable economy. “Transformation toward new and renewable energy as well as the acceleration of an economy based on green technology will be an important change in our economy,” he said.

Those are all rosy ways of describing the contentious job creation law that was passed by parliament last October, which aims to attract investment by slashing back the country’s onerous regulations and red tape.

The 905-page law, known as the Omnibus Bill, includes sweeping revisions to 79 laws in key sectors including labor and taxation, which Jokowi’s administration claims are necessary to spur economic growth and position Indonesia at an axial position in vital global supply chains.

But the law has been widely condemned for its likely impacts on labor rights and environmental protections. In particular, unions say that the laws will harm workers who have already been squeezed by the impacts of COVID-19, pointing to provisions that will allow employers to cut mandatory leave and reduce severance pay.

The speech also had a slightly defensive tone that reflected not just the criticisms of Jokowi’s economic reform agenda, but also reflects the pressure that his government has come under for its handling of the pandemic.

In its earliest months, the Indonesian government was slow to take COVID-19 seriously. Then, wary of the economic impacts, Jokowi resisted calls for a lockdown to contain the virus, banking instead on using vaccines as a ladder out of the pandemic, setting ambitious plans to distribute 181.5 million doses by the end of this year.

But while Indonesia began vaccinating earlier than many other countries in Southeast Asia, limited supplies and logistical challenges have hampered the rollout. As of August 15, Indonesian health authorities had only fully vaccinated just over 28 million people, while a further 25.5 million had received at least one dose, according to Our World in Data.

In his speech, Jokowi acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic “has brought with it exhaustion, boredom, weariness, sadness, and distress,” and promised to improve the government’s vaccination and treatment efforts. “I also understand that there are many criticisms directed at the government,” he added. “Constructive criticism is crucial and we always respond to that by fulfilling our responsibilities as expected by the people.”

NEW YORK, Aug 13 (Reuters) – Global stock markets hit new record highs on Friday, boosted by forecast-beating corporate earnings, but the dollar and Treasury yields fell after data showed U.S. consumer confidence plummeted in early August.

The University of Michigan’s survey showed consumer confidence falling to its lowest level since 2011 in the first half of this month. The decline marked one of the six largest drops in the past 50 years of the survey. read more

The unexpectedly weak reading could give Federal Reserve policymakers reason to pause on a decision over whether to begin pulling back the extraordinary stimulus it put in place to shield the U.S. economy from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The renewed plunge suggests the latest wave of virus cases driven by the Delta variant could be a bigger drag on the economy than we had thought,” said Andrew Hunter, an economist at Capital Economics.

Pandemic-era stimulus has been behind much of the surge in stock prices the past year, but massive corporate earnings have given the rally new legs in recent weeks.

“If we look at the earnings trajectory, it still lends a lot of support to the valuations in the market,” said Yung-Yu Ma, chief investment strategist at BMO Wealth Management. “Earnings season provided some comfort and stability.”

The MSCI world equity index (.MIWD00000PUS), which tracks shares in 50 countries, hit a fresh record high. MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS) gained 0.22%.

The S&P 500 (.SPX) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) closed at record highs. Walt Disney (DIS.N) was a star performer, climbing 1.6% after its earnings topped market forecasts. read more

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 16.06 points, or 0.05%, to 35,515.91, the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 7.26 points, or 0.16%, to 4,468.09 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 6.64 points, or 0.04%, to 14,822.90.

European stocks scaled new highs and clocked their fourth consecutive week of gains on optimism over a strong earnings season and steady recovery from the pandemic-led economic downturn.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index (.STOXX) rose 0.2% to a record high of 476.16, for the tenth straight session. The index has now matched its best winning streak since December 2006.

Not everyone is convinced the rally can continue, however.

“We feel a bit more cautious headed into autumn because of uncertainty on the health front, the Chinese regulatory front and the monetary policy front,” said Paul O’Connor, head of multi-asset at Janus Henderson.

Gold rose as tapering concerns eased. Spot gold added 1.5% to $1,778.31 an ounce. U.S. gold futures settled up 1.5% at $1,778.20.

U.S. benchmark 10-year Treasury yields tumbled and the dollar weakened after the consumer confidence survey, bolstering gold’s appeal.

Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 24/32 in price to yield 1.2884%, from 1.367% late on Thursday. The dollar index fell 0.516%, with the euro up 0.59% to $1.1796.

Worries about a regulatory crackdown in China and a surge in the COVID-19 Delta variant have sapped confidence in Asia, where markets mostly declined.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) fell 0.56%, and was 0.8% lower for the week. Chinese blue chips (.CSI300) weakened 0.55%, dragged down by the local semiconductor sub-index (.CSIH30184), which slumped 4.1%.

Oil fell on Friday, but was on track to post a slight weekly gain, broadly shrugging off a warning from the International Energy Agency that the spread of coronavirus variants is slowing oil demand. U.S. crude futures settled at $68.44 per barrel, down 65 cents or 0.94%. Brent crude futures settled at $70.59 per barrel, down 72 cents or 1%.

Reporting by Matt Scuffham in New York Additional reporting by Evan Sully and Lindsay Dunsmuir; Editing by David Evans and Matthew Lewis

U.S. inflation pressures topping out in July, relieving some pressure on the Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy by reducing its bond purchasing program sooner rather than later.

The modest shift in monetary policy expectations after U.S. CPI saw an annual rise of 5.4% in July is helping to support gold prices; however, some analysts warn that the market still has a lot of ground to make up to undo the damage from Sunday’s flash crash.

For many analysts, gold’s first hurdle to overcome is $1,760 an ounce. December gold futures last traded at $1,751.50 an ounce, up 1% on the day.

In a recent research note, Lukman Otunuga, senior research analyst at FXTM, said that gold’s technical outlook after Sunday’s selloff is heavily bearish.

“Sustained weakness below $1760 may result in a decline back towards $1700 and below. Alternatively, a breakout above $1760 could trigger a move towards $1792 and $1800,” he said.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, said that the sun could be setting on higher gold prices following the inline inflation data.

“Gold missed its chance to shine over the past months. What would’ve made gold prices shine was soaring inflation expectations and falling U.S. yields. But investors preferred piling into the stock markets and to the cryptocurrencies, leaving gold behind the global risk rally. Now that the U.S. yields are preparing to rebound, and inflation expected to soften, gold will likely lose its major bullish pillars, and dive deeper,” she said in a report Wednesday.

Ozkardeskaya added that the one thing that could drive gold prices higher is a correction in equity markets. Following the latest inflation data, the S&P 500 rose to a new intra-day record high. The broad equity market index last traded at 4,440 points, roughly unchanged on the day.

“One thing that could save gold from falling more is an eventual equity selloff, a moody market, less risk appetite and the urge to liquidate the long equity positions with the fear of seeing a global market plunge triggered by either the delta contagion crisis or the tighter Fed expectations, or a combination of both,” she said.

Other analysts have noted that it will be difficult for gold prices to rally as it competes against historic bullish momentum in equity markets.

In a comment on Twitter, John Reade, chief gold strategist at the World Gold Council, said he is also watching the $1,760 level. In a recent interview with Kitco News, he also highlighted gold’s struggle against record equity valuations.

“Why do you need the diversity that gold offers when risk assets are at all-time highs pretty much every day,” he said.

However, Reade added that gold’s long-term fundamentals remain in place as the Federal Reserve will be limited to how much it can tighten its monetary policies going forward.

“The last tightening cycle stopped very soon after it started and was reversed because the global economy couldn’t handle higher interest rates,” he said.

Meanwhile, some see a new fundamental shift in the gold market as Sunday’s washout came after the precious metal was unable to push above its 200-day moving average on multiple tries.

Commodity analysts at Standard Charter said in a recent report there is a risk that gold retests its yearly low as prices remain above $1,790 an ounce. They added that significant support to watch is between $1,682 an ounce and $1,671, representing the 38.2% retracement level from the lows seen in 2015 to the record highs last year.

“Below $1682/71 would mark a significant-top to mark an important change of trend lower,” the analysts said in the report.

By Neils Christensen
Kitco News

Stocks were mostly higher on Tuesday, drifting to the upside as traders weighed concerns over the Delta variant’s latest spread against optimism over an ongoing rebound in economic activity.

The S&P 500 and Dow each eked out record intraday highs, while the Nasdaq dipped. A day earlier, both the S&P 500 and Dow sank, dragged down by energy stocks amid concerns over reinstated travel restrictions in China due to rising coronavirus infections. Investors on Tuesday eyed the passage of a sweeping $1 trillion infrastructure bill by the U.S. Senate, with the legislation to rebuild roads, bridges and other physical infrastructure across the country now headed to the House of Representatives. 

U.S. West Texas intermediate crude oil futures (CL=F) advanced Tuesday to recover after reaching a three-week low on Monday. Treasury yields rose across the curve, and the benchmark 10-year yield broke above 1.34%. 

Shares of AMC Entertainment (AMC) gained after the movie theater operator topped second-quarter revenue estimates, with customers’ return to the theaters taking place more forcefully than anticipated at the start of the summer. Shares of peer “reopening” stock Planet Fitness (PLNT), however, dipped after the gym’s full-year sales and profit outlook missed estimates, suggesting a slower-than-expected consumer return to in-person workouts. 

Investors this week have been appraising the extent of the growth slowdown that might be triggered by the latest resurgence in domestic and global coronavirus cases. According to a number of economists, the virus has already set off a measurable deceleration in U.S. consumer spending. 

“In the last couple of weeks, we’ve started to see a little bit of pullback in some of the travel and entertainment-type categories, really with the most noticeable pullback in spending on airlines,” JPMorgan Chase senior economist Jesse Edgerton told Yahoo Finance on Monday, citing Chase credit card spending data. “It’s still a small decline compared to the absolute collapse essentially to zero that happened during the first COVID wave back in March and April of last year … Now that we’re at a higher level and people are starting to travel again to some extent, it looks like they’re pulling back more than they did when they were still at very low levels last year.” 

Others, however, believe that these concerns will ultimately deflate, especially given they are unlikely to catalyze the same kind of economy-wide shutdowns that characterized the restrictions last year. 

“I think lot of the fears around the Delta variant in particular are a bit overblown,” Elyse Ausenbaugh, JPMorgan Private Bank global market strategist, told Yahoo Finance. “Although I think investors are grappling with the Delta variant and treating that as a primary brick in the so-called ‘wall of worry,’ I don’t think it’s something that derails the longer-term view.”

“Ultimately, investors are going to stay focused on those super-strong fundamentals, like easy financial conditions, robust consumer demand and also that labor market recovery,” she added. 

Policymakers have also taken note of the pick-up in economic activity, and two Federal Reserve officials on Monday suggested the U.S. economy was nearing the threshold of “substantial further progress” in recovering that would trigger a shift away from highly accommodative monetary policy. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic said the economy “would have made the ‘substantial progress’ toward the goal” set by the central bank if U.S. job gains come in as strongly as they did in June and July for another couple months, according to Bloomberg. And Richmond Federal Reserve President Thomas Barkin, likewise, said “on the price side, we made substantial progress,” with inflation running well above the central bank’s achieving 2% average inflation. 

Emily McCormick·Reporter

TOKYO, Aug 9 (Reuters) – The dollar climbed against major peers on Monday, reaching a four-month high versus the euro, as traders positioned for an earlier tapering of Federal Reserve stimulus.

The greenback strengthened as far as $1.1742 to the single currency , extending a 0.6% pop from Friday, when a strong U.S. jobs report stoked bets that a reduction in asset purchases could start this year and higher interest rates could follow as soon as 2022.

The dollar index , which tracks the U.S. currency against six rivals, rose to a two-week top 92.915.

The dollar also hit an almost two-week high of 110.37 yen .

“U.S. payrolls were a game-changer,” Chris Weston, head of research at brokerage Pepperstone in Melbourne, wrote in a client note.

The dollar index is eyeing a close above 93, while the currency could head for $1.1704 per euro, Weston wrote, adding that it could climb further versus the yen too should U.S. yields continue to tick higher.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield jumped 8 basis points on Friday to a two-week high of 1.3053%. There was no trading in Tokyo on Monday with Japan shut for a national holiday. Singapore markets were also closed.

Friday’s non-farm payroll report showed jobs increased by 943,000 in July compared with the 870,000 forecast by economists in a Reuters poll. Numbers for May and June were also revised up. read more

The Fed has made the labor market recovery a condition of tighter monetary policy, and most officials back the view that a jump in inflation will prove transitory, though there is debate over how prolonged it could be.

Traders will be keenly watching a U.S. consumer price report on Wednesday.

Last week, Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida suggested that conditions for hiking interest rates might be met as soon as late 2022.

The dollar rallied against its Australian and New Zealand counterparts on Monday, jumping 0.3% to as high as $0.7330 per Aussie and up 0.4% to $0.6980 per kiwi .

SYDNEY (Reuters) – The dollar was poised to push higher on Thursday as hawkish comments from the U.S. Federal Reserve led markets to bring forward the likely timing of a policy tightening there, while action in Europe and Japan remain distant prospects.FILE PHOTO: Four thousand U.S. dollars are counted out by a banker counting currency at a bank in Westminster, Colorado November 3, 2009. REUTERS/Rick Wilking/File Photo

The euro was down at $1.1837, having recoiled from a top of $1.1899 overnight and marking another failure to crack resistance around $1.1910.

The dollar also bounced to 109.51 yen, from a trough of 108.71 on Wednesday, negating what had been a bearish break on the downside.

The rally came after Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida said conditions for an interest rate hike could be met in late 2022, setting the stage for a move in early 2023.

He and three other Fed members also signalled a move to taper bond buying later this year or early next depending on how the labour market fared in the next few months.

“It is reflective of a hawkish drift among the committee about the risks of more persistent inflation, and what that might mean for achieving the Fed’s new inflation framework,” said Brian Daingerfield, an analyst at NatWest Markets.

“This is all to say that the stakes for Friday’s payrolls, and subsequent payrolls, are sky high.”

Predicting the jobs report with any confidence remains particularly tricky as the spread of the Delta variant and labour bottlenecks roil the market.

Thus, while the median forecast for payrolls is 870,000 the range of estimates stretches from 350,000 to 1.6 million.

Adding to the murkiness were Wednesday’s mixed data where a surprisingly weak ADP report on private hiring clashed with the strongest ever reading for U.S. services.

Clarida’s comments led investors to price in slightly more chance of a hike in late 2022/early 2023 and to a flattening of the Treasury yield curve as short-term yields rose.

Such a move would likely come well ahead of any tightening by the European Central Bank, which is still battling to get inflation near its target.

In contrast, the Bank of England is much nearer to tapering and could expand on timing at a policy meeting later on Thursday.

That outlook helped the pound rally early in the year, though it has gone largely sideways on the last couple of months. It was last pinned near support at $1.3884, having repeatedly failed to clear resistance above $1.3980.

All these central banks are laggards compared with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), which seems likely to hike rates at its next policy meeting on Aug. 18, making it the first in the developed world to move since the pandemic hit.

A super-strong jobs report on Wednesday only added to the case for New Zealand tightening and sent the kiwi surging to a one-month peak of $0.7088 overnight, before steadying at $0.7041.

Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Sam Holmes

An inflation indicator that the Federal Reserve uses as its key guide rose 3.5% in June, a sharp acceleration that was nonetheless right around Wall Street expectations, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

The personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes food and energy, was expected to increase 3.6% at a time when the U.S. economy has seen its highest inflation pressures in more than a decade.

That gain was slightly ahead of the 3.4% May increase and represents the biggest move since July 1991.

Fed officials have said they expect the inflation surge to be transitory as it has come largely from industries sensitive to the economic reopening, as well supply chain bottlenecks and other issues likely to fade. The central bank targets 2% as its desired inflation goal, though officials are willing to tolerate higher levels temporarily as the economy tries to get back to full employment.

The core PCE index rose 0.4% month over month, which was below the 0.6% Dow Jones estimate, indicating that inflationary pressures may be starting to ebb at least a bit.

Personal income and spending numbers, however, were better than expectations as consumers flush with stimulus cash kept the economic rebound going.

Income rose 0.1%, better than the estimate for a 0.2% decline, while spending increased 1% against a 0.7% forecast.

Employment inflation also continued to increase.

Compensation costs rose 0.7% for the three-month period ending in June while wages and salaries were up 0.9%. For the year, compensation costs increased 2.9%, up from 2.7% a year earlier, according to a separate report Friday from the Labor Department.

On the price inflation front, the PCE index including food and energy increased 4% from a year earlier, its largest increase since July 2008, just before the worst of the financial crisis hit. Energy prices rose 24.2% and food moved 0.9% higher.

The eurozone’s economy grew by 2% in the second three months of the year, taking the region out of recession.

New figures suggest there was growth in all the individual national economies which reported data.

The 19-nation bloc had suffered a so-called double-dip recession when the economy contracted in the previous two quarters.

However, the eurozone remains 3% down from its pre-pandemic level in late 2019.

A recovery is under way in the region after the surge in coronavirus infections in the winter.

In Italy and Spain, two countries whose economies were badly damaged by the pandemic, growth approached 3% in both.

There was an even stronger rebound in Austria and Portugal, with the latter reporting its economy had expanded by 4.9%.

The eurozone’s two largest economies saw more moderate growth, 1.5% in Germany and 0.9% in France.

The growth statistics are first estimates, so there is little detail showing the breakdown of the pattern of recovery.

However, household spending made an important contribution in France, Germany and especially in Spain. In France there was a surge in the hotel and restaurant trade of 29%.

Andrew Kenningham, chief Europe economist at Capital Economics, said Portugal’s rebound might reflect “a slightly less disastrous tourism season than Spain’s”.

He forecasted “another strong number for eurozone GDP” in the third quarter of the year, which “would bring the economy close to, but below, its pre-pandemic level”.

In contrast, the US has closed that gap, however, US employment is still down and economic activity is below where it probably would have been had there not been the pandemic.

Other new eurozone figures showed the number of people unemployed fell by more than 400,000 in June, though it is still one million higher than the low it hit early last year.

By Andrew Walker
BBC World Service economics correspondent