Japan's election news could bring some positive feedback into European markets, especially with a floor of corporate earnings on both sides of the Atlantic this week, says Hargreaves Lansdown's Richard Hunter.

SHOWS:

LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (JULY 22, 2013) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)

1. HARGREAVES LANSDOWN HEAD OF EQUITIES, RICHARD HUNTER, SAYING:

JOURNALIST ASKING QUESTION: 'Well, Richard, how much of that news from Japan is going to filter through and drive European markets today?'

'It's likely that there is going to be some positive feeling on the back of it. It removes in some ways another plank of uncertainty, something that the market is looking forward to because what we have seen over the last week or so is that, I think Ben Bernanke wondered just how many other ways he could say the same thing, namely that tapering wouldn't happen until such time as the US economy is back on its own two feet. And also, as and when it is done, it will be done on a gradual basis. So, that's, along with the Japanese news, has allowed investors to focus back in on corporate earnings because we're really ramping up the number of corporate earnings on both sides of the pond this week.'

JOURNALIST: 'Indeed we are. And one of the big ones out of Europe today was a Swiss bank- UBS beat the street, profits higher than expected. Markets seemed to like it. Shares are up 2.5%.'

'Yes, that's right. It's managed to come to some sort of agreement with the US regulators over some supposed misselling although that's not actually quite true to the figure. But perhaps most promisingly, in terms of its flagship private banking arm, it reported inflows for the period of CHF10 billion. So, this is kind of following the positive US banks' news that we've had so far and should have a positive read across for the UK banks, which will start reporting their H1 figures in a couple of weeks' time.'

JOURNALIST: 'You mentioned the Fed earlier- Ben Bernanke. You're talking about earnings now. What's going to be the driver for the week here in Europe? Is it going to be taper talk or earnings?'

'I think it's fair to say we have now switched to very much back to earnings. There's some interesting ones coming along this week. From the States in particular, the likes of Facebook and Ford, McDonald's today. And also Apple tomorrow because if you can summarize the US Q2 reporting season so far, it's not totally ramped up to full speed but we've had a few coming through. But if you can summarize it so far, it's been fairly disappointing for the tech stocks and fairly pleasing for the banking stock. So, we'll continue to get a flavor of US corporate health in the next few days.'

JOURNALIST: 'We've been talking for about two and a half, three minutes and we haven't mentioned the Eurozone crisis, but Portugal is still in focus. There'll be no snap election but many analysts including Goldman Sachs today reckon that our second bailout is on the cards. Is that playing into investors' minds today?'

'News like that has obviously never helped before. I think there's an increase in the pragmatic view that it's the larger in terms of percentage of the overall GDP countries- the sort of Spain's and Italy's and even to some extent the France's, which do cause some sort of concern. So, the Portuguese news will not be pretty helpful for sentiment but on a standalone basis, unlikely to be market moving.'