LIVE MARKETS-An S&P reminder about these Italian banks

Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of European equity markets brought to you by Reuters stocks reporters. You can share your thoughts with Thyagaraju Adinarayan (thyagaraju.adinarayan@tr.com), Joice Alves (joice.alves@tr.com), Julien Ponthus (julien.ponthus@tr.com) in London.

AN S&P REMINDER ABOUT THESE ITALIAN BANKS (1112 GMT)

It seems that going deeper into negative rates and singing the lower for longer blues ain't exactly what shareholders of European banks had in mind for 2020!

Banking stocks are among the worst performers and, as usual, Italian banks are at the bottom of the banking index this morning.

So, with that in mind, this snapshot from an S&P note this morning sums up pretty well why Italian lenders are so often seen as among Europe's weakest links:

And here are the winners and losers of the banking sector this morning. As you can see, it's really about Italy but Deutsche is down there too:

(Julien ponthus and Marc Jones)

MILAN AND FRANKFURT TURN NEGATIVE IN ELUSIVE REBOUND (1010 GMT)

That rebound at the open is looking very, very frail at the moment with Milan falling over 2% and Frankfurt abandoning all its gains.

Why?

"What is pushing down Milan today are the banks", said Carlo Alberto De Casa, chief analyst at ActivTrades and technical analyst for the Italian newspaper 'La Stampa'.

Financials are the worst sector in Europe this morning and with its overweight on financials, the FTSE MIB is losing close to 2%.

It's not completely clear why banks are losing so much ground: on one hand an ECB rate cut would dent their margins but they would also make good money on their sovereign bond portfolio, Carlo Alberto De Casa argued.

But anyway, it seems sentiment is just the main culprit with coronavirus proxies like travel and leisure and automotives among the worst performing sectors:

Anyhow, have a look at the STOXX 600 so far, it's not looking that convincing anymore given some optimistic investors floating the expectation of coordinated action from central banks.

The STOXX rose as much as 2.3% and is now flatfish:

(Julien Ponthus)

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OPENING SNAPSHOT: SES SLUMPS, HISCOX JUMPS

European bourses opened in positive territory on hopes that global central banks will act to counter the impact of coronavirus on the economy.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 1.8% after a 12% slump last week, with miners and oil & gas companies leading the gains, after oil prices rose more than $1 a barrel on hopes of a deeper cut in output by OPEC after earlier hitting multi-year lows.

Among the top movers, shares in SES was 9% lower and hit their worst level in over 15 years after the satellite operator cut its 2020 EBITDA and revenue outlook.

The top gainer on the index is Hiscox (+8%) after the insurer said it has received small claims related to the coronavirus outbreak as its pandemic is only covered in a very small part of its portfolio.

(Joice Alves)

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ON THE RADAR: RHEINMETALL ON THE RISE (0759 GMT)

Defence and automotive parts group Rheinmetall could be a top riser this morning after reporting record sales and operating profit. One trader sees Rheinmetall shares up 4%.

Boeing's supplier Senior is seen rising despite a fall in both 2019 adjusted and pretax profits and said it expected 2020 margins to fall as the halt in production of 737 MAX jets weighed on its business.

Finland's Nokia appointed Pekka Lundmark, CEO of energy group Fortum, as its new chief executive starting from Sept. 1, 2020.

Just Eat Takeaway said it started arbitration proceedings against rival Delivery Hero's move to increase its stake in the company. Just Eat said it broke a standstill undertaking.

More headlines about NMC Health, which said it will ask lenders for an "informal" standstill on debt, as it confirmed the appointment of Moelis as a financial adviser to assist on talks with its banks and said it hired PwC and Allen & Overy as advisers.

(Joice Alves)

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EUROPEAN BOURSES SET FOR MODEST (TENTATIVE?) REBOUND (0708 GMT)

European bourses are seen opening higher, after a 12.2% drop last week, the worst weekly drop since the global financial crisis, and mirroring Asian shares, which steadied from early losses as investors hope for a coordinated global monetary policy intervention to help with the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on the economy.

The scale of losses are prompting financial markets to price in policy responses from the Fed, the Bank of Japan and the Reserve Bank of Australia.

The epidemic, which has killed around 3,000 people worldwide, is heavily hitting production with activity in China shrinking at a record pace in February. In Europe, Nike closed its regional headquarters in the Netherlands today for two days after an employee was infected with the coronavirus.

Meantime, Britain and the European Union will kick off tense trade talks.

Futures for the STOXX 50, the DAX, the CAC 40 and the FTSE are up 2.1%, 2.2%, 1.6% and 2.4% respectively.

(Joice Alves)

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(Reporting by Danilo Masoni, Joice Alves, Julien Ponthus and Thyagaraju Adinarayan)