by Claude Chendjou
PARIS (Reuters) – Wall Street is expected to be in disarray at the opening on Friday and the main European stock markets are moving without a clear direction at mid-session, with investors trying to digest the recent drop in bond yields and the contrasting results of large companies, while being cautious before the publication of the monthly employment report in the United States. New York index futures signal Wall Street opening up 0.01% for the Dow Jones, down 0.04% for the Standard & Poor’s 500 and 0.23% for the Nasdaq: In Paris , the CAC 40 fell by 0.11% to 7,052.79 points around 12:25 GMT. In Frankfurt, the Dax gained 0.17% and in London, the FTSE lost 0.13%.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index fell 0.05%, the Eurozone EuroStoxx 50 rose 0.04% and the Stoxx 600 gained 0.06%.
The positive trend is still driven by expectations of an end to the current cycle of monetary tightening by major central banks, which has caused a sharp drop in bond yields.
The gains are, however, limited by the usual caution before the publication of the American employment report which should show for the month of October, according to the Reuters consensus, a slowdown in job creation to 180,000, an unemployment rate stable at 3 .8% but an acceleration in average hourly wages of 0.3% over one month.
Investors are also awaiting the monthly ISM indices of services activity in the United States while in the United Kingdom, activity in the sector contracted further in October.
In the euro zone, the unemployment rate, against all expectations, increased slightly in September over one month, to 6.5% of the active population, a sign that the restrictive policy of the European Central Bank (ECB) is weighing on employment. .
VALUES TO FOLLOW AT WALL STREET
Apple announced Thursday that it expects lower-than-expected sales for the crucial holiday quarter despite better-than-expected third-quarter results. The stock fell 3.1% in pre-market trading.
VALUES IN EUROPE
Quarterly publications also liven up discussions on the Stoxx 600, notably in Paris Axa which lost 1.73%, the insurer having published a turnover over nine months without much surprise.
Société Générale, on the other hand, took 0.85% despite revenues lower than expectations in the third quarter, the bank taking advantage of a favorable context for cyclical values.
Atos climbs again, by 4.22%, with Onepoint increasingly seen as a white knight capable of saving the IT services group after new statements from its boss in the press.
In Frankfurt, BMW gained 2.95% thanks to an increase in its margins.
The Danish Maersk fell 16.85% after warning about its annual profit forecast and announcing 10,000 job cuts.
RATE/EXCHANGE The yield on ten-year Treasuries fell by around four basis points, to 4.6325%, and that on the German Bund of the same maturity was stable.
The dollar lost 0.23% against a basket of reference currencies after losing 0.7% the day before.
OIL
Oil prices continue to benefit from the renewed appetite for risk: the barrel of Brent gained 0.53% to 87.31 dollars and that of American light crude (WTI) increased by 0.76% to 83.09 dollars. .
(Writing by Claude Chendjou, edited by Kate Entringer)
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