EUROPEAN SCHOLARSHIPS ARE TRADE ON VERY LOW DIFFERENCES
PARIS (Reuters) – Wall Street is expected to rise slightly Thursday at the opening and European stock markets are moving on very narrow spreads and in limited volumes at mid-session, investors catching their breath two days before the New Year after a good streak for risky assets amid optimism about the economic outlook.
New York index futures signal an opening up 0.13% for the Dow Jones, 0.2% for the Standard & Poor’s-500 and 0.25% for the Nasdaq.
While the latter ended lower on Wednesday, the Dow Jones and the S & P-500 set closing records. These three stock indexes are on course for their third consecutive year of gains, boosted by historic fiscal and monetary stimulus. The S&P 500 is currently up 27.6% over the whole of 2021.
In Paris, the CAC 40, which exceeded 7,200 points in Wednesday’s session for the first time, gained 0.24% to 7,178.59 around 12:45 GMT.
In Frankfurt, the Dax is up 0.03% and in London, the FTSE gives up 0.06% after reaching a high since February 2020 the day before after a long weekend.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index is up 0.17%, the Eurozone EuroStoxx 50 by 0.35% and the Stoxx 600 by 0.24%. The volumes on the latter and the CAC 40 represent around 10% of their daily average for the last 30 sessions.
Equity markets have recently hit record highs as fears over the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economic recovery have faded.
Despite lingering concerns, it appears that the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus is less deadly than feared, said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg.
“The markets are starting to negotiate the recovery scenario for 2022 again,” he added, stressing that the higher level of bond yields reflected these expectations and the prospect of slowing central bank support.
As for economic indicators, investors will follow the weekly jobless claims in the United States at 13:30 GMT. VALUES TO FOLLOW AT WALL STREET
In trade before the opening of Wall Street, Biogen loses 6% after Samsung BioLogics denied press information that the South Korean group was in discussions to buy the American laboratory.
VALUES IN EUROPE
The European tech sector shows the biggest gain of the day for the moment and gains 0.77%, which allows it to erase some of the losses recorded on Wednesday.
In contrast, the automotive compartment shows the most significant decline: its Stoxx index drops 0.33%.
CHANGES
After losing nearly 0.3% on Wednesday, the dollar is up 0.13% against a basket of other major currencies, supported by cautious optimism among traders about the economic consequences of the new epidemic wave.
At the same time, the euro lost 0.26%, to 1.1319 dollars.
RATE
On the bond market, the yield on ten-year Treasuries fell to 1.5289%, a decline of around one basis point, after posting a one-month peak at 1.56% on Wednesday.
The ten-year German also gives up a little ground by returning to -0.2%, against a high in session at -0.171%, a level which it had not reached since November 4th.
OIL
The oil market is down after reports that China, the world’s largest importer of crude, has reduced a first round of crude import quotas by 11% for 2022.
“Market sentiment has weakened over fears that the Chinese government will take tougher measures against [raffineurs indépendants]”said a Singapore-based analyst.
Brent lost 0.66% to 78.71 dollars a barrel and US light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) 0.76% to 75.98 dollars.
(Laetitia Volga, edited by)