A daily look at the Markets from Joshua Raymond, Market Strategist, City Index.

Equities in Europe climbed in early trade on Monday as investors capitalised on stronger commodity prices to push Europe’s benchmark Indices higher by 0.4%.

The key to today’s gains has been the mining sector.

Both Copper Spreads and Gold Spreads have been driven higher thanks to the weaker US Dollar.

This has helped to entice buyers into the mining sector today, which is the standout gainer so far and the main engine behind today’s Index gains. Xstrata, Rio Tinto, and Kazakhmys are all standout gainers in early trade.

Vodafone rallies on dividend talk

Another key driver behind today’s early gains is high demand for Vodafone shares, which currently tops the FTSE 100 winners list, rallying over 3%.

Investors have moved quickly to buy Vodafone after a report in the Sunday papers that the telecom giant is in talks with its joint venture partner Verizon over a potential dividend payment, helping to lift shares to within 1% of a new 20 month high.

Also see Vodafone Spreads.

BSkyB falls on UBS downgrade

BSkyB is the main faller in the UK today on the back of a downgrade by UBS. UBS cut its rating on the firm to ‘neutral’ from an original ‘buy’ position.

The bank noted that the recent upsurge in share prices may have been overdone and that a potential ofcom ruling on sports/movies packages to third parties could be cut by more than first expected, potentially triggering a downgrade to EPS estimates.

This has got shareholders a little nervous and they have moved to reduce holdings as a result this morning.

Non Farms a focus

Investors continue to focus on the macro economic situation to provide further clues of the strength of the economic recovery.

We have a lot of economic data to get through this week with the highlight being March’s US jobs data.

An interesting point will be that Non Farm Payroll’s fall on a day when Europe’s markets are closed due to the bank holiday.

Therefore, with Non Farms expected to show the first creation of jobs since December 2007, we may see investors in Europe position themselves for this data as we approach Friday.

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