PARIS (Reuters) – The main European stock markets are moving on a cautious note on Monday morning in the face of uncertain economic prospects, between the beneficial effect of the reopening in China and the restrictive impact on the activity of monetary tightening by central banks.
In Paris, the CAC 40 is almost unchanged at 6,994.39 points around 08:45 GMT. In London, the FTSE 100 takes 0.11% and in Frankfurt, the Dax grabs 0.05%.
The EuroStoxx 50 index is up 0.14%, the FTSEurofirst 300 0.03% and the Stoxx 600 0.15%.
The optimism surrounding the reopening of China and the start of the corporate earnings season helped to relegate concerns about the economic outlook and the ongoing monetary tightening by central banks to the background last weekend.
But these fears remain very present, in particular in Europe, after the declarations Sunday of Klaas Knot, member of the Council of governors of the ECB, which pleaded for an increase in the interest rates of 50 base points in February and in March.
This pushed the euro to a nine-month high against the dollar.
Despite this, the technology compartment (+1%), whose valuation is sensitive to changes in interest rates, is showing the strongest sectoral increase in Europe, a sign of investors’ growing optimism about the economy.
The chemicals sector (-0.8%) suffered for its part from the 7% drop in the German Symrise, which reported an EBITDA margin for 2022 below expectations.
In Paris, Atos climbed 3.8%, boosted by information from the Journal du Dimanche according to which the French group Astek has expressed its interest in a takeover of the future separate entity Evidian, which will notably bring together the coveted Big Data and Security division. (BDS) of Atos.
(Written by Blandine Hénault, edited by Tangi Salaün)
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