(New York) Apart from Wall Street, global stock markets rose on Thursday, driven by well-received corporate results as well as a lull in rates in Europe after better-than-expected inflation figures in Germany.
Wall Street, which had started the day on the rise, the day after a session in red, failed to maintain its rebound: the Dow Jones lost 0.73%, the S&P 500 0.88% and the NASDAQ lost dropped 1.02%.
In Europe, Milan gained 1.26%, Paris 0.96%, Frankfurt 0.72% and London 0.33%, setting a new closing record at 7911.15 points.
Inflation in Germany fell to 9.2% year on year in January, taking into account the harmonized price index, which serves as a benchmark for the European Central Bank.
A figure “not as bad as the market feared”, commented Neil Wilson, analyst at Finalto.
On the bond market, sovereign yields in Europe eased significantly after four sessions of increases. The ten-year US rate, down at the start of the session, finally rose to 3.66% against 3.60% the day before.
The New York Stock Exchange “changed direction when bond yields rose,” noted Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management.
“It looks like the market has decided to refocus on tough Fed rhetoric,” Spartan Capital’s Peter Cardillo told AFP.
Credit Suisse neglected, Standard Chartered coveted
The action of Credit Suisse plunged 14.73%, close to its all-time low, a sharp drop at the end of the session. The bank suffered a massive loss of 7.3 billion Swiss francs (around C$10.7 billion) in 2022 and forecast another loss for this year.
British bank Standard Chartered jumped 11.44% in response to press reports suggesting that First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) is still considering a takeover offer, a month after saying that such a option had been considered for a time, but was no longer relevant.
Disney tightens its belt
In search of profitability for its streaming platforms, including Disney + which lost subscribers for the first time in its history, Disney announced on Wednesday the layoff of 7,000 people. This news and better-than-expected results initially pushed the stock up, which eventually contracted by 1.31%.
Toymaker Mattel plunged more than 10% after a disappointing fourth quarter as year-end sales fell short of expectations.
Solid results in Europe
Many publications were well received by investors in Europe, in particular Siemens (+7.03%) and Legrand (+4.06%) in industry, Deutsche Börse (+1.92%), or even Ipsen (+ 7.09%) and AstraZeneca (+4.07%) in health.
Google’s chatbot fails
While a race for artificial intelligence equipment is raging between the big names in the internet, Alphabet (Google) has again dropped ground for the second session in a row (-4.54%).
His conversational robot “Bard” presented in Paris displayed an error which had already cost 7% in action the day before.
On the side of currencies and oil
The pound took 0.38% to 1.2118 dollars, around 5 p.m. (Eastern time), after an intervention by the head of the Bank of England, who felt he needed more evidence of a decline in inflation before changing its monetary tightening policy.
The euro gained 0.24% to 1.0738 dollars.
Oil prices have caught their breath, after three consecutive sessions of increases, tempered by demand that seems to be lower than supply in the United States, while in China the recovery remains turbulent.
A barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in April fell 0.69% to 84.50 dollars.
Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in March, fell 0.52% to 78.06 dollars.