by Claude Chendjou
PARIS (Reuters) – European stock markets, with the exception of London, ended lower on Friday while Wall Street was also in the red at mid-session at the end of a week marked by announcements from major central banks opening overall the way to a less accommodating monetary policy while concerns about the spread of the Omicron variant are not abating.
In Paris, the CAC 40 ended up down 1.12% to 6,926.63 points. The British Footsie, on the other hand, nibbled 0.13%. The German Dax dropped 0.67%.
The EuroStoxx 50 index fell by 0.96%, the FTSEurofirst 300 by 0.56% and the Stoxx 600 by 0.56%.
Over the week as a whole, the Paris index fell by 0.93% and the Stoxx 600 by 0.35%, their most marked weekly declines since the week ending November 26.
The downward trend in Europe as in the United States is driven by the technological compartment, particularly sensitive to a change in interest rates, and by the energy sector, because of fears about the demand for crude oil in view of the health situation.
After the Federal Reserve’s decision on Wednesday to double the amount of the reduction in its bond purchases, a prelude to three interest rate hikes by the end of 2022, the Bank of England became the first of the major ones on Thursday. central banks around the world to increase the cost of credit since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
If the European Central Bank (ECB) has shown itself less determined to turn the page on its support for the economy, its president, Christine Lagarde, has not however ruled out a rate hike in 2022.
The last major bank to announce its monetary policy decision, the Bank of Japan said on Friday it would cut emergency aid while remaining accommodative.
To the turn of the screw of the main central banks are added concerns related to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus which could become dominant in several European countries by the end of the year, while the restrictive measures multiply at the same time, posing a threat. for global growth.
A study from Imperial College in London shows that the risk of recontamination with Omicron is five times higher than with the Delta variant.
VALUES IN EUROPE
In Paris, STMicroelectronics lost 1.26% in the wake of the decline in the technology sector (-0.73%). Elsewhere in Europe, Infineon and ASML fell 0.85% and 2.04% respectively.
On the upside, Airbus advanced 1.69% on the back of a giant order for 100 A320neo family planes by Air France-KLM (+ 1.76%).
Biopharmacy company Genfit jumped 40.78% after announcing a strategic partnership with Ipsen (-8.05%) on its experimental drug elafibranor.
In Milan, the Carige bank sold 7.19%, its main shareholder having rejected the takeover proposal submitted by BPER (-0.17%).
On the sectoral level, the automobile fell by 2.66% after the publication of data from the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA) which show a drop of 17.5% in new registrations in Europe in November on global semiconductor shortage background.
Energy dropped 1.73% in the wake of lower oil prices amid demand fears.
A WALL STREET
At close in Europe, the Dow Jones fell 1.13%, the Standard & Poor’s 500 0.64% and the Nasdaq 0.2%.
Big tech stocks weigh on trend as US interest rates hike next year
Apple, Meta Platforms, Amazon and Microsoft lose between 0.2% and 1.2%. The sector index of “techs” on the S & P-500 fell 0.7%.
In terms of mergers and acquisitions, Oracle fell 5.4% after press reports that the American professional software giant is in discussions to buy Cerner (+ 12.1%), a specialist in medical infrastructure, for $ 30 billion (26.5 billion euros).
The Fedex messaging group jumped 5.4%, for its part, after restoring its profit forecast for 2022 on Thursday, despite persistent labor shortages.
TODAY’S INDICATORS
The inflation rate in the euro area reached 4.9% year on year in November, its highest level, still under the effect of rising energy prices, show figures released Friday by Eurostat, which confirm his first estimate.
The Ifo business climate index in Germany, for its part, fell in December, due to supply bottlenecks and restrictions imposed against COVID-19.
CHANGES
On the foreign exchange market, the dollar index, which measures the evolution of the greenback against major currencies, started to rise again (+ 0.33%) after losing 0.5% on Thursday following the decision of the Bank of England to raise interest rates.
The euro, down 0.49%, traded at 1.1272.
The pound sterling is also lower against the dollar (-0.41%) after benefiting from the announcements of the Bank of England on Thursday.
RATE
The yield on ten-year US Treasuries fell four basis points to 1.3817% as investors digest the latest announcements from central banks.
The German Bund rate of the same maturity ended down 2.6 basis points to -0.372%, while its French counterpart dropped 3.3 points to -0.024%.
OIL
Oil prices are falling and heading for a decline of more than 1% over the week as a whole as the increase in contamination by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has raised fears that possible new restrictions will affect demand for raw.
Brent lost 2.17% to $ 73.39 per barrel and US light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) 2.04% to $ 70.89 per barrel.
(Report Claude Chendjou, edited by Sophie Louet)
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