LIVE MARKETS-Trade war rally? Seriously?

Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of European equity markets brought to you by Reuters stocks reporters and anchored today by Julien Ponthus. Reach him on Messenger to share your thoughts on market moves: julien.ponthus.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net

TRADE WAR RALLY? SERIOUSLY? (0605 GMT)

Futures for European futures are clearly up, about 0.6 percent for the bourses of Frankfurt, Paris or London and that's clearly not something that was expected with the trade war narrative building up further today.

"Given that trade tariffs are due to kick in today, we would have expected to see more anxiety in the markets", writes Jasper Lawler, head of research at LCG, noting a positive session on Wall Street, higher shares in Asia and that Europe is pointing to an "upbeat Friday".

Indeed, it's hard to believe a further escalation but as we speak Chinese equities are up quite strongly!

After earlier falls, the benchmark CSI300 Index is up 1.2 percent and the Shanghai Composite Index is rising 0.9 percent.

U.S. futures are up too and it's hard to see where the good news is. As a reminder, U.S. tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese imports just took effect and Beijing has vowed to respond.

As far as we know, the world's two biggest economies are still facing a possible all-out trade conflict.

(Julien Ponthus)

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EUROPEAN BOURSES SEEN RISING AS TRADE WAR ENTERS NEW PHASE (0525 GMT)

European bourses are expected to rise at the open just after U.S. tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese imports took effect as a deadline passed on Friday.

With Beijing having vowed to respond immediately in kind, it seems the worse-case scenario of an all-out trade conflict feared by investors is materialising fast.

While one could have expected markets to fall, financial spreadbetters expect London's FTSE to open 26 points higher, Frankfurt's DAX up 60 points and Paris' CAC to rise 32 points.

(Julien Ponthus)

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