(New York) European stock markets ended in the green, following the Wall Street trend, after a period of uncertainty in the face of slowing inflation in the United States and weak European growth.
In New York, the Dow Jones rose 0.80%, the S&P500 0.83% and the NASDAQ 0.69% following news of slowing US inflation in March on a year, in line with analysts’ forecasts.
European markets caught up with their dropout at the start of the session, digesting a week marked by corporate results and punctuated on Friday by rather gloomy European GDP publications.
The euro zone narrowly avoided recession, with growth leveling off at +0.1% in the first quarter. After the publication of these figures, bond yields on European government debt fell sharply.
The Frankfurt market ended up 0.77%, London 0.50%, Paris 0.10%, while Milan lost 0.30%.
The US PCE inflation index, the indicator most followed by the US central bank (Fed), posted a slowdown on Friday to 4.2% over one year, against 5.1% the previous month.
Under particular scrutiny by the markets, underlying inflation in the United States slowed to a lesser extent to 4.6% (compared to 4.7% previously).
If it is “hard to draw positive or negative conclusions” from all the indicators published on Friday, “the market has decided to retain the slowdown in inflation” as good news “after a difficult week”, explains Andrea Tuéni, analyst of Saxo Bank, with AFP.
Market moderation can also be explained by “the desire not to take risks while waiting” for the meeting of the American central bank, the Fed, scheduled for May 2 and 3.
The markets are convinced that the monetary institution will once again raise its key rate by 0.25 percentage points, but still hope that it will give indications for a more accommodating policy for the coming months.
On the bond market, the interest rate of the two-year US debt, the most sensitive to monetary policy expectations, fell slightly to 4.00% against 4.06% the day before and that of the 10-year debt fell more strongly at 3.42% instead of 4.52%.
No extra for Amazon
Amazon posted, like its major competitors, a first quarter above expectations, which confirms the recovery of the group’s trajectory.
Results deemed insufficient by Wall Street, however, due to poorer performance on the cloud computing side (the clouds). The title lost almost 4%. The New York place has harshly corrected Snap, parent company of Snapchat and its first quarter results, its share losing more than 17%.
Deposits, a black spot for banks
Banking uncertainties have returned to center stage, with regional bank First Republic Bank suspended from trading after another 43% plunge.
His days seemed numbered.
British bank Natwest reported higher earnings thanks to interest rates, but the stock fell 3.75% in London.
The trend has affected all European banks. Banco Sabadell fell by 7.14% in Madrid, Commerzbank by 3.96% in Frankfurt and UniCredit by 3.75% in Milan.
Bayer heckled
After criticism from shareholders at a meeting on Friday, the agrochemical and health group Bayer (+0.07%) will review the compensation system for its executive board, promised Norbert Winkeljohann, chairman of the supervisory board.
The shareholders have also demanded a new start at the parent company of Monsanto, where the new boss, Bill Anderson, will replace Werner Baumann on departure in June.
On the side of barrels and currencies
The euro yielded 0.10% against the greenback at 1.1017 dollars around 4:55 p.m. (Eastern time).
Bitcoin was down 1.00% at $29,336.
The price of oil rebounded on the eve of impending OPEC+ production cuts.
The barrel of Brent from the North Sea took 1.49% to 79.54 dollars and that of the American WTI 2.57% to 7678 dollars.
If the European stock markets started a long weekend with the holiday Monday of 1er May, Tokyo and Wall Street will remain open.