MORNING BID EUROPE-Germany pursues leads on violence spate

* A look at the day ahead from European Economics and Politics Editor Mark John and EMEA Markets Editor Mike Dolan. The views expressed are their own.

LONDON, July 25 (Reuters) - Authorities in Germany are picking through leads on three separate violent incidents that have shaken the country in recent days. Bavarian officials say the 18-year-old German-Iranian gunman who killed nine people in Munich on Friday began planning the attack a year ago, and police have arrested a 16-year-old Afghan youth suspected of having prior knowledge of his plans. Separately, the 27-year-old Syrian killed when a bomb he was carrying exploded outside a music festival in Ansbach had tried to commit suicide twice before. It is still unclear whether he planned to harm others in the attack, which wounded 12. Earlier on Sunday near Stuttgart, a 21-year-old Syrian refugee was arrested after killing a pregnant woman and wounding two others with a machete.

France's interior minister has meanwhile rejected an assertion by a senior Nice (Milan: NICE.MI - news) security official that his staff tried to change a report into policing on the night of the Bastille Day attack that claimed 84 lives. The country's Socialist government has come under fire for not doing enough to prevent the July 14 attack. It is still far too early to assess what impact, if any, the events of this month will have on votes in France and Germany next year where both Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel are widely expected to seek reelection. Critics of Merkel, whose ratings have risen post-Brexit, are already using the violence to berate her decision to allow hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees into Germany; Hollande got a bounce in his dismal poll ratings at the weekend.

Germany's first Ifo survey that will take the Brexit vote into account is expected to show a slight drop as executives fret over the shock referendum result; in the UK, CBI industrial orders are due for much of July.

MARKETS AT 0645 GMT

After a buoyant couple of weeks despite all the political surprises, world equity markets appear to be leveling off into a big policy week including the FOMC and the Bank of Japan. But just as nerves calm about some post-Brexit hit to global activity, the oil price is suffering a relapse in the background. Dogged by the ongoing supply glut, the demand picture for Brent crude at least is uninspiring and prices fell close to $45 late Friday and remain just above those levels early Monday. One eye-catching comment from Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) is that global oil demand growth is set to be a third of what it was in the same quarter last year. All of which tallies with the relentless slide in government bond yields this year, even if another question mark over record high equities. The latter is often explained away by expectation of ever-more policy stimulus, although G20 certainly gave little to suggest anything extraordinary was discussed on that score this weekend in Chengdu. And part of the reason for the recent oil relapse is a reinvigorated dollar and rekindled Fed rate rise forecasts. No change is expected at this week's FOMC, but there's plenty of talk of a move as soon as September again, even though futures pricing slipped back a bit late Friday to about 14 pct from as high 20 pct earlier last week. Ahead of the BoJ decision on Friday, BoJ chief Kuroda again insisted speculation of direct monetary financing of government, or 'helicopter money', was not on the agenda and forbidden under existing laws anyhow.

Elsewhere, the European earnings season gets underway in earnest this week, but are only going to give another reason to question the buoyancy in equity. European earnings are expected to contract for the fourth year in the past five in 2016, despite valuations of 14.8 times forward earnings that are more than 23 percent above their average over the past decade. Major Asia bourses were flat to lower overnight, with emerging Asia in KL, Jakarta outperforming.

Upcoming events/data/themes for market reports on Monday:

- Europe corp events: Ryanair, Aberdeen, Julius Baer (LSE: 0QO6.L - news) , SEB (LSE: 0MGS.L - news) , Hiscox (Swiss: 27373019.SW - news) , Hammerson (Other OTC: HMSNF - news) , Luxottica (Milan: LUX.MI - news)

- German July Ifo business sentiment

- UK CBI's July Business Orders

- Turkish July manufacturing confidence

- Israel rate decision

- Kenya rate decision

- Poland June jobless

- US Q2 earnings: Texas Instruments (Sao Paolo: TEXA34F.SA - news) , KimberleyClark

- US Treasury auctions 2-year note (Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)