(Paris) Stock markets were on a mixed note on Monday, after a record-breaking week, with attention focused primarily on inflation.
After breaking new records on Friday, US indices remained without a clear direction yet: the Dow Jones futures contract was up 0.18% while the S & P500 and NASDAQ were close to equilibrium around 7:25 a.m.
In Europe, while Paris advanced 0.22%, Frankfurt (-0.20%) and London (-0.08%) were negative.
In Asia, the Japanese index ended down 0.35%, while Hong Kong lost 0.43%. In contrast, Shanghai gained 0.20% on the first day of the Communist Party Central Committee meeting, its largest meeting of the year.
After two weeks of meeting the major global monetary institutions, “the market seems to have concluded that overall central bankers would maintain a very accommodating position for a long time to come”, explain analysts at La Banque Postale AM.
Monetary policies, global growth and the “very good results, on average”, of companies during the third quarter explain that the markets “continue their race to the top”, they argue.
But inflation is still at risk of derailing the indices. A faster-than-expected pace may weigh on corporate margins, but also make central banks less attractive to the market.
This tension will persist as long as inflation remains at a high level, which should always be the case at least during the first quarter of 2022.
Investors are now waiting to take note of the producer price index (PPI) and consumer price index (CPI) in the United States on Tuesday and Wednesday.
As for indicators, Chinese exports increased beyond forecasts in October, the Customs Administration announced on Sunday, especially in markets as strategic as the United States.
In the bond market, state interest rates rose slightly after falling sharply at the end of last week. The US 10-year rate stood at 1.48%, up three basis points.
Honda slashes its forecasts
The automaker Honda (-3.34% to 3,295 yen) drastically cut its annual earnings forecast on Friday, affected more severely than before by component shortages and rising raw material costs.
Henkel cuts profitability
The manufacturer of household products and adhesives suffered (-5.87% to 76.06 euros) after cutting into its profitability target due to rising prices for raw materials and transport. In the third quarter, the turnover of the group, which notably owns the Le Chat, Schwarzkopf, Bref or Pattex brands, rose 3.5% to 5.1 billion euros.
Bouygues pays dear Equans
The builder Bouygues was chosen by the energy company Engie (+ 0.60% to 12.79 euros) to sell it Equans, its technical services entity in the energy sector, an operation worth 7.1 billion euros. euros which becomes the most important in the history of the French construction group. The latter lost 5.39% to 33.67 euros.
On the oil, euro and bitcoin side
Oil prices continued on Monday to recover from the bout of weakness of the past week, fueled by the OPEC + decision, the adoption of the vast plan for infrastructure investments in the United States and an increase in tariffs from Aramco to Asia. Around 7:20 a.m., the price of a US barrel of WTI gained 1.56% to 82.54 dollars and that of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea took 1.23% to 83.76 dollars.
The euro was unable to rebound sustainably against the greenback, after hitting a 15-month low on Friday during the session. It remained stable (+ 0.05%) at $ 11,573.
Bitcoin was approaching new highs, climbing 4.85% to $ 65,920.