(BFM Bourse) – The Paris market barometer signs its biggest fall of the year this Friday (-1.75%), as fears linked to the evolution of the Fed’s monetary policy intensify in a few days another central bank meeting. The first results, in particular those of Netflix, add to the sluggishness of the markets.
Our colleague Guillaume Bayre was careful to specify in the closing point of Thursday’s session that, “barring disappointment on Friday”, the tricolor market barometer was heading for a positive weekly performance. Prophetic mention, since the CAC 40 records today its worst daily performance (-1.75%) since November 26 (-4.75%, day of the discovery of the Omicron variant) and thus continues a second week of decline (-1.05%). This sharp decline brings the star index to 7,068.59 points, an annual low at the close.
If it has clearly decoupled from Wall Street (+0.6% for the CAC 40 and -5.9% for the S&P 500 since January 1 at the close of this Thursday) thanks to its lower allocation to technology stocks (victims of the sector rotation at work), the CAC 40 did not escape this Friday, January 21, 2022 the reversal of the New York indices the day before (the Nasdaq notably lost more than 3% “intraday”), the latter evolving moreover still in the red around 6 p.m.
The downward movement observed, which has intensified since Thursday on Wall Street, is fueled by market nervousness ahead of a new meeting of the Fed’s monetary policy committee next Tuesday and Wednesday. Investors are mainly waiting for clarification on the pace of monetary tightening to come.
“Market participants are currently torn. On the one hand, economic signals in Europe are green and the EU economy could get back on track in the next two to three quarters. has signs of exhaustion in US tech stocks, the drivers of the US stock market rally so far,” notes Andreas Lipkow, analyst at Comdirect. Last signal of this breathlessness: Netflix collapses by more than 20% at the end of the morning in New York after having disappointed on the growth of its new subscribers in the last quarter, as well as on its ambitions for the current financial year.
The automobile stalls, the tech weighed down by the Nasdaq
In Paris, where 38 of the 40 values of the flagship sample ended the session in the red, only Danone (+0.6%) and Carrefour (+0.4%) having timidly floated, the prize list does not betray a real trend. sectoral. Stellantis loose 3.6% after the sale, by Dongfend Motor, of nearly 1.3% of the capital at 18.30 euros per share. In the front line in the face of fears of more intense monetary tightening than expected, certain growth and technology stocks (-2.3% for Worldline, -2% for Teleperformance, -1.8% for Capgemini and STMicro), luxury ( -1.9% for Kering) and others like Eurofins (-2.9%), also relapsed heavily.
It is nevertheless ArcelorMittal (-7.3%) and Alstom (-5%) which bring up the rear, the second remaining under pressure the day after the confirmation of its annual (and medium-term) objectives, despite the announcement of 7,500 recruitments in 2022 in the morning and the slight increase in the target of Invest Securities – all the changes in recommendations of the day can be found here. Airbus also lost 2% after canceling a contract with Qatar Airways for 50 A320 Neo. Among the other notable declines, Saint Gobain and Veolia drop 3.3% each.
The rest of the stock market is picking up somewhat under the effect of the increased pace of annual publications, which will accelerate significantly from February 1 with the results of LVMH. The homeopathy specialist Boiron, which has been making a strategic shift towards so-called “specialty” drugs since last year, confirms its recovery with further growth in its revenues in the last quarter, and recovers 7.3%.
GL Events returns to profit
Devastated by restrictions and multiple cancellations (major trade shows, sporting events, etc.) in 2020, event champion GL Events has strongly returned to revenue growth in 2021 (+54%) and confirms its objective of an annual net profit. The stock advances by 5.5%.
Compagnie des Alpes grabbed 1% after reporting the “best quarter in its history”. Despite “a still heavy health context”, its revenues stood at 166.7 million euros between October and December, establishing a historic level for this period (+20.5% over one year and +36.6% per year). report on the 1st quarter of its (postponed) 2018-2019 financial year, the last full one before the pandemic).
Vallourec (-6.6%), TechnipFMC (-4.2%) and Schlumberger (-3.4%) suffered for their part from the decline in oil prices from their recent multi-year highs. Shortly before 6 p.m., the barrel of Brent indeed yielded 1.4% to 87.2 dollars while that of WTI fell 1.9% to 84.6 dollars. Operators are encouraged to take some profits by the latest figures from the EIA which revealed a surprise increase in crude inventories as well as gasoline reserves, which is a bad signal for demand. TotalEnergies also returns 2.1%.
In the foreign exchange department, the single currency is trading at 1.1345 dollars, up 0.29% from the previous day. The bitcoin finally fell to a low since last August (-4.9% to 38,750 dollars), also won by the lack of appetite for risk among investors before the Fed meeting.
Quentin Soubranne – ©2022 BFM Bourse