Peter Nurse 

The European Stock Markets Trade Higher Tuesday – Investing.com continues the positive start of the New Year with Strong German Retail Sales boosting hope for an economic recovery. 

At 3:45 AM ET (0845 GMT), the in Germany traded 0.2% higher, the in France rose 0.7% to an all-time high, while the U.K.’s gained 1.3%. Pan-European was also up 0.9%.

The November surprise rise in retail sales was 0.6%, an unexpected increase despite new Covid-19 restrictions, which hampered consumer-led recovery of Europe’s largest economy.

also stabilized in December, with the 3.4% year-on-year increase in the Eurozone’s second largest economy slightly less than the 3.5% expected. According to the European Central Bank, price pressures in Europe may have reached their peak. The French data support this view. 

Bruno Le Maire (Finance Minister in France) said Tuesday that country’s growth will be substantially higher this year than government’s current projection of 6.25%.

This optimism was bolstered by data from December showing an increase in the number of cases in Covid-19. Many European countries as well as the U.S. reported record daily numbers, prompting restrictions to prevent the spread of Omicron variant, which is highly contagious. 

The first day of trading for the year saw strong gains in European indices. Wall Street was also on track with records closing for the and the, while Asia was generally ahead Tuesday.

This is corporate news Novartis (SIX:) stock rose 0.4% after a U.S. court of appeals upheld the validity of a patent for the Swiss drugmaker’s multiple sclerosis treatment Gilenya.  

The tech sector was also boosted by Apple (NASDAQ)’s market value surpassing $3 trillion on Monday, and Tesla (NASDAQ) publishing strong results in the fourth quarter for vehicles sold.

Pre-meeting of major producers was held to determine future output levels. However, Omicron cases are on the rise. There were no restrictions in place for countries with large fuel consumption. Oil prices rose slightly.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will hold a meeting with allies and members. It’s called OPEC+. The cartel is likely to keep its promise to boost output by 400,000 barrels daily in February. Despite its policy numbers, the cartel has failed to meet its quota allocations several times in recent months.

Investors are also awaiting oil supply data from the, due later in today.

U.S. crude oil futures were 0.4% lower at $76.38 per barrel by 3:45 PM ET. The contract was 0.3% higher at $79.19. Both contract prices rose by more than 1 percent on Monday.

Also, the price of gold rose 0.2% to $1.804.35/oz while it edged up to 1.1297.