(Paris) European stock markets are stable in the first exchanges on Friday, before the publication of many indicators, including inflation in the euro zone and official employment figures in the United States.
London took 0.20%, Milan 0.10%, but Paris fell 0.04% and Frankfurt 0.10% around 3:15 a.m. (Eastern time).
During the first four sessions of the week, the broader pan-European EuroStoxx 600 index recorded a total increase of 3.40%.
In Asia, the Tokyo Stock Exchange closed up 0.59%, but ended its first week of the year down (-0.46%), shortened in three sessions.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index ended down slightly (-0.29%), after its start to the year with a bang (+6.17%) thanks to renewed optimism about Chinese growth with the end of the “zero COVID-19” strategy in the country and the prospect of new measures by the authorities to support the national economy. Shanghai gained 0.17%.
The atmosphere is much more tense on Wall Street, where the figures for job creations in the private sector, much stronger than expected, dragged the indices into the red on Thursday: the Dow Jones index fell by 1, 02%, the NASDAQ by 1.47% and the broader S&P 500 index by 1.16%.
“These signs have led investors to expect a more aggressive path of rate hikes from the US Federal Reserve”, which is trying to bring inflation in the United States back to more acceptable levels, analysts at the Bank said. Deutsche Bank. She fears that an overly tight labor market will lead to higher wages, which will then be reflected in the selling prices of products.
But ahead of the jobs report at 8:30 a.m. EST, or the ISM services activity index at 10 a.m. EST, investors will remain focused on the euro zone. with, at 5 a.m. (Eastern time), the inflation figures – which will arrive after reassuring data for France and Germany – and on retail sales.
Among other data, in Germany, orders placed with industry fell by 5.3% in November 2022 over one month, reaching their lowest level since July 2020. And in France, household consumption rebounded from 0 .5% in November.
Samsung Electronic’s profit slump
South Korean giant Samsung Electronics said on Friday it expects operating profit to fall 69% year on year in the fourth quarter, weighed down by falling overall demand for electronics to around 3.4 billion. of dollars. This drop, expected, did not prevent the title from progressing by 1.37%. The group must publish its final annual results at the end of January.
Rival Hynix rose 2.09%, and chipmakers in Korea also rose.
Aeronautics on the rise
The aeronautics and defense sector was well oriented on Friday, in particular Safran (+2.27%), Dassault Aviation (+2.52%), Thalès (+1.50%) in Paris, MTU Aero Engin ( +1.71%) in Frankfurt or BAE Systems (+1.32%) in London and Leonardo (+1.34%) in Milan.
On the side of oil and currencies
Oil prices are up slightly on Friday, which does not compensate for their fall of around 8% over the week: the barrel of Brent from the North Sea for March delivery took 0.05% to 78.70 dollars, that of WTI US down 0.19% to $73.81 around 3 a.m. EST.
The price of wholesale European natural gas fell below 70 euros per megawatt hour, down 4.72%.
The revision of expectations for rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve pushed the dollar to its highest level in four weeks against the euro. The European currency was stable at $1.0525 around 3:05 a.m. EST.