European stocks expected to rise this Monday, August 2, 2021 as the infrastructure plan advances in the US Congress. The Eurostoxx 50 opened at 4,089.30 points with a decline of 0.67%, the CAC 40  at 6,612.76 points (-0.32%), the DAX 30 at 15,544.39 points (-0.61%), the FTSE 100 at 7,032.30 points (-0.65%), the SMI at 12,116.82 points (+0.25%), the AEX  at  754.31 points (-0.50%), the BEL 20 at 4,200.47 points (-0.44%), the IBEX 35 at 8,675.70 points (-1.26%), the DJIA at 34,935.47 points (-0.42%), the Nasdaq at 14,672.68 points (-0.71%), the S&P 500 at 4,395.25 points (-0.54%) and the Nikkei 225 at 27,810.40 points up 1.93%.

As regarding the exchange rate, the change from the close in New York indicates that EUR/USD opens at 1.1874   with an increase of 0.04%, EUR/JPY at 130.23 (+0.04%) and USD/JPY at 109.71 up 0.01%.

Investors will follow the final July manufacturing PMI figures on Monday. Preliminary data, released July 23 by IHS Markit, showed the index falling to 58.1, its lowest level in five months, from 59 in June. On the corporate side, Axa and DBV technologies publish their half-year results.

European equity markets are expected to open higher on Monday for the first session of August. Investors welcome the progress made in the US Congress by the new infrastructure plan and analyze the latest data on manufacturing activity in China pending those from the euro zone and the United States. At 7:40 a.m., the CAC 40 futures contract gained 32 points, or 0.5%, according to data from broker IG Markets. The contract on the DAX 30 gained 72 points, or 0.5%, and the FTSE 100 contract took 34 points, or 0.5%.

Friday evening, Wall Street ended lower, weighed down by tech stocks after Amazon's disappointing forecasts. However, U.S. indices gained ground for the entire month of July. The Dow Jones Index (DJIA) lost 0.4% to 34,935.47 points, and the broader S&P 500 index fell 0.5% to 4,395.26 points. The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite fell 0.7% to 14,672.68 points.

In Asia, the main indices are trading higher on Monday, supported by information on the US infrastructure plan. At the end of the session, the Nikkei index was up 1.9% in Tokyo and the Hang Seng was up 1.2% in Hong Kong. The Shanghai Composite Index gained 1.4%, despite a slowdown in manufacturing activity growth in China in July to its lowest level since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The manufacturing PMI fell to 50.3 in July, a 16-month low, from 51.3 in June, Caixin and IHS Markit said Monday. By comparison, China's official manufacturing PMI, which focuses more on large state-owned enterprises than Caixin's, fell to 50.4 in July, from 50.9 in June, according to data released Saturday by the National Bureau of Statistics.

US Treasury bond yields fell the most in July since March 2020, down 0.241 percentage points to 1.228%, as investors reassessed the economic outlook to account for new threats related to the Delta variant of the coronavirus. A 7:40 a.m., the yield on the ten-year Treasury, the benchmark for the bond market, continued its decline and was trading at 1.225%, against 1.228% friday night. This was the second consecutive month of decline in the yield on the ten-year bond. The prospect of prolonged fiscal support measures being offset by the forecast of a reduction in asset purchases by the Fed, while further lockdown measures cannot be ruled out.

The euro is up slightly against the dollar on Monday morning. Markets are focused on new threats related to the Covid-19 pandemic, while awaiting Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's intervention at the Jackson Hole symposium in late August. Investors are watching inflation trends as the U.S. economy appears less robust than previously estimated and the Fed maintains an accommodative stance, distancing the prospect of monetary policy tightening.

Oil contracts are falling on Monday morning due to concerns caused by the increase in the number of contaminations by the Delta variant of Covid-19 worldwide. At 7:35 a.m., the October Contract for North Sea Brent lost 75 cents to $74.66 a barrel. The September contract for light sweet crude (WTI) listed on the Nymex was down 65 cents to $73.32 a barrel.