by Laetitia Volga
PARIS (Reuters) – London excepted, European stock markets ended higher on Thursday as investors continued to push stocks higher as the new year approached as concerns fade over the impact of the global increase cases of COVID-19.
In Paris, the CAC 40 gained 0.16% to 7,173.23 points. The British Footsie fell 0.24%, under the blow of profit taking, after having reached the previous day a high since February 2020 at the end of a prolonged weekend. The German Dax took 0.21%.
The EuroStoxx 50 index rose 0.5%, the FTSEurofirst 300 advanced 0.16% and the Stoxx 600 0.15%.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones and S & P-500 indices set new highs. They gained at the time of the European close 0.1% and 0.14% respectively while the Nasdaq took 0.48%.
Yet with nearly a million cases recorded on average each day in the world between December 23 and 29, according to data compiled by Reuters, contamination by SARS-CoV-2 worldwide has reached a record level in over the past seven days.
But the low danger of the Omicron variant compared to the Delta variant suggested by recent studies has reassured investors who feared that this highly contagious strain could slow down the economic recovery.
Coming to bolster market confidence in the economy, Labor Department data showed jobless claims unexpectedly declined last week, suggesting there has been no Omicron effect yet. on the job market.
“We have had a year to deal with COVID and investors are starting to believe that the economy can be maintained if we continue to face this type of variant,” said Rick Meckler, Cherry Lane Investments, as a reference. at Omicron.
VALUES
The European transport and leisure sector posted the biggest increase of the day, + 1.99%.
In contrast, the food and drink compartment showed the most significant decline: its Stoxx index dropped 0.09%.
At individual values, oil groups like Shell, TechnipFMC and BP lost 0.64% to 0.89% due to the drop in crude.
CHANGES / RATES
After losing nearly 0.3% on Wednesday, the dollar recovered 0.14% against a basket of other major currencies and the euro, meanwhile, lost 0.29%, to 1.1315 dollars.
On the bond market, the yield on ten-year Treasuries fell slightly to around 1.529%, without any major catalyst to guide the market and with many traders absent.
The ten-year German ended the day without much change, at -0.179%, after reaching its highest level since November 4, at -0.171%.
OIL
The oil market is evolving in turmoil, torn between reports that China has reduced a first round of crude import quotas for 2022 and optimism over the effects of the pandemic on demand.
Brent lost 0.03% to $ 79.21 per barrel and US light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) gained 0.44% to $ 76.9.
(Laetitia Volga, edited by)