by Laetitia Volga
PARIS (Reuters) – Major European stock markets are expected to rise on Tuesday when they open the day after significant losses amid renewed concerns about the impact of the Omicron variant on global growth.
According to futures contracts, the Parisian CAC 40 could gain 1.49% at the opening, the Dax in Frankfurt would take 1.48% and the FTSE in London would advance by 1.35%.
The benchmark European index Stoxx 600 posted a loss of 1.4% on Monday, falling to a two-week low.
The increase in COVID-19 cases around the world, the entry into containment of the Netherlands and doubts about the strategy other countries could adopt to slow the rapid spread of the Omicron variant have led investors to withdraw of the equity market.
The risk of failure in the US Congress of an investment plan of 1.750 billion dollars wanted by Joe Biden also weighed on the trend, both in the United States and in Europe.
“Sign of the fickleness of sentiment, we expect a positive opening, as the volatility of fluctuations is expected to continue for another day (…) Concerns around Omicron remain very real,” said Michael Hewson at CMC Markets, who further cites the lack of large numbers of market participants for the holiday season as part of the reason for market volatility on Monday.
A WALL STREET
The New York Stock Exchange could resume on Tuesday between 0.8% and 1.2%.
On Monday, the Dow Jones index fell 1.23% to 34,932.16 points, the S & P-500 lost 1.14% to 4,568.02 points and the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.24% to 14,980.94 points.
At values, Oracle dropped 5.2% after the announcement of the takeover of Cerner, a company specializing in medical data, for $ 28.3 billion (25 billion euros).
IN ASIA
After two sessions in the red, the Nikkei on the Tokyo Stock Exchange ended up 2.08% on cheap buybacks.
“The Japanese market has fallen too much in previous sessions due to extreme caution about the impact of Omicron, which is hitting the United States and Europe. But so far, Japan has failed Not experienced a lot of infections. On top of that, Japanese stocks are relatively cheap, “said Kazuharu Konishi at Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management.
Mainland China’s CSI 300 index rose 0.68%, led by real estate values. Beijing has urged large private and public real estate companies to buy real estate projects from struggling developers to reduce the risk of destabilizing the economy, the official China Securities Journal reported on Monday.
RATE
In the bond market, the ten-year US gained one basis point to 1.431% after hitting a low of more than two weeks on Monday at 1.353%.
In early trading, the ten-year Bund yield was stable at -0.359%.
CHANGES
The dollar moves without much change against the other major currencies and the euro is stable at 1.1284 dollars.
The variations are also very limited for the pound sterling which suffered on Monday from the words of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in favor of strengthening health measures if necessary.
The Turkish lira continues to rise, gaining more than 6.5% against the dollar, after hitting an all-time low the day before. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented a series of measures on Monday evening which he said will ease the burden of currency depreciation for Turks.
“I imagine that the measures announced to protect the savings of domestic investors against fluctuations in the pound have given some impetus to hedge short positions,” said Shaun Osborne, head of foreign exchange strategy at Scotiabank.
OIL
Oil prices rebound on Tuesday although investors remain concerned about Omicron’s rapid spread around the world.
The barrel of Brent took 0.96% to 72.21 dollars, wiping out part of the losses of the day before, and that of American crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) rose 1.27% to 69.48 dollars after having yielded 3.7% on Monday.
NO ECONOMIC INDICATOR ON THE AGENDA FOR TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21
(edited by Blandine Hénault)