PARIS (Reuters) – European stock markets ended slightly lower on Wednesday, swept away by the decline in Wall Street and the disappointing forecasts of the American giant Microsoft.
In Paris, the CAC 40 fell 0.09% to 7,043.88 points. Britain’s Footsie fell 0.16% and Germany’s Dax 0.08%.
The EuroStoxx 50 index lost 0.12%, the FTSEurofirst 300 ended down 0.26% and the Stoxx 600 0.29%.
At the time of the close in Europe, Wall Street was also evolving in the red, the Dow Jones losing 0.61%, the S&P-500 0.81% and the Nasdaq Composite 1.13%. All the major sectors of the American rating were evolving in negative territory, starting with high technologies (-1.19%).
Microsoft was down around 1% as the computer software giant warned that growth in its cloud business could stall.
Concerns are growing over this season of quarterly results when the macroeconomy is already affected by the monetary tightening led to no charge by the major central banks.
Revenue for Stoxx 600 companies is expected to have grown just 0.9% in the fourth quarter, according to Refinitiv-IBES data, which would mark a sharp slowdown from the 27.4% growth in the third quarter. .
Another negative point for equities: the prospect of seeing the ECB stay the course in its monetary tightening.
Joachim Nagel and Gabriel Makhlouf, two officials at the institution, said they would not be surprised if the rise in interest rates continued in the second quarter after two hikes expected in February and March.
VALUES
The technology compartment fell 0.41% following Microsoft’s announcements. The semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASML (+0.23%) however managed to close in the green thanks to quarterly results above expectations.
On the rise, the company EasyJet jumped 9.70%, supported by good forecasts for 2023.
CHANGES
The dollar is stable against a basket of international currencies and the euro is trading at 1.0897 dollars.
The Canadian dollar fell 0.33% against the note, as the Bank of Canada said it plans to keep its key rate at 4.50% – its highest since 2007, in order to assess the cumulative effect of hikes in past rates.
“I was a bit surprised that central bank officials were so explicit (…) but they are clearly confident enough about the economic effect of the monetary tightening in place to be sure that they will not need raise the rate further in most scenarios,” said Andrew Kelvin at TD Securities.
RATE
Eurozone benchmark yields ended unchanged at 2.158% for the German 10-year. At the time of the European close, the American ten-year was stable at 3.4709%.
OIL
On the oil market, optimism regarding the recovery of demand in China prevails, which allows the barrel of Brent to rise to 86.69 dollars (+0.65%) and American light crude (to take 1.04% to $80.96.
(Laetitia Volga, edited by Camille Raynaud)
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