Contracts for German goods fell 0.9 percent after a downwardly revised drop of 0.2 percent the previous month, data from the Federal Statistics Office showed. Analysts polled by Reuters had on average predicted a 0.5 percent rise in orders.
The government last month cut its 2018 growth forecast to 2.3 percent from 2.4 percent and expressed concern about international trade tensions.
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have both indicated their willingness for a summit. Sean Yokota, head of Asia strategy at Nordic bank SEB, said he believes that geopolitical tensions will ease in the months ahead.
Speaking to CNBC's "Capital Connection," he said: "In the next one to two months, when Trump is coming here, I think geopolitical tensions are low, economic activity's picking up … so that's usually positive for equity markets."
He predicted that stock markets in Japan and Korea in particular will do well.
• U.S. steel tariffs have led to an increase in volumes on Europe’s steel market as some manufacturers divert their product to the European Union, the head of Germany’s steel association told a newspaper.
“In the first three months (of 2018), imports from Russia rose by 139 percent from a year earlier, those from Turkey by 76 percent,” daily Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung quoted Hans Juergen Kerkhoff as saying in an interview published on Monday.
He urged the EU to quickly implement measures to prevent foreign steel from flooding the EU market, for instance by imposing its own quotas or tariffs.
• Protective tariffs imposed by the United States in recent months have only had a minor impact on the world economy but a significant escalation in tensions could derail the recovery in global trade, the European Central Bank said on Monday.
Retaliation and a full fledged trade war could increase import prices, raise production costs and eat into households’ purchasing power, negatively impacting consumption, investment and employment, the ECB said in an economic bulletin article.
• Key crude oil prices rose by 1 percent to their highest levels since late-2014 on Monday, pushed up by a deepening economic crisis in Venezuela and a looming decision on whether the United States will re-impose sanctions against Iran.
Brent crude oil futures were at $75.57 per barrel at 0650 GMT, up 70 cents, or 0.9 percent, from their last close. Earlier in the session, they touched their highest since November 2014 at $75.89 a barrel.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 70 cents, or 1 percent, to $70.42 per barrel. Monday was the first time since November 2014 that WTI had climbed above $70 per barrel.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC
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