by Marc Angrand
PARIS (Reuters) – Wall Street is expected to rise timidly and European stock markets stagnate at mid-session on Friday, as investors seem to hold their breath as they wait for monthly US employment figures, which are likely to revive Federal Reserve monetary policy speculation, which has already rocked the markets in recent days.
Futures contracts on the main New York indices show an increase of 0.11% for the Dow Jones after two sessions of declines, of 0.23% for the Standard & Poor’s 500 and of 0.36% for the Nasdaq, which has lost 4.8% over the last three days.
In Paris, the CAC 40 is practically unchanged at 7,248.61 points at 11:45 GMT, as is the FTSE 100 in London, while in Frankfurt, the Dax is down 0.24%.
The EuroStoxx 50 index and the FTSEurofirst 300 are stable while the Stoxx 600 drops 0.16%.
Economists and analysts polled by Reuters predict an average of 400,000 non-farm job creations in December after 210,000 in November and a drop in the unemployment rate to 4.1%, which would be its lowest level in nearly two years.
If consensus is reached, the US economy will have created 6.5 million jobs in 2021, which would be unheard of since 1939.
Even though many observers expect a slowdown in January due to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the tone of the Labor Department’s report is sure to fuel the debate over the timing of the Fed’s two-day monetary tightening. after the more offensive “minutes” than expected from its December meeting.
“If wages increase to integrate the rise in inflation, thus triggering the effects of the second round, this will consolidate the Fed in its policy of monetary tightening,” said Alain Guélennoc, Managing Director of Federal Finance Management.
In the euro zone, the most anticipated figure of the day was the first estimate of inflation in December and it confirms the acceleration of the sustained rise in prices with an increase of 5% year-on-year for the HICP index, a new upper.
VALUES IN EUROPE
The strongest sector increases in Europe were for the commodities compartments, for which the Stoxx index gained 1.69%, and energy (+ 0.84%), with the rise in the prices of base metals and oil.
The high technology compartment also takes 0.71% after the solid results of the South Korean giant Samsung and the turnover above expectations of STMicroelectronics, which is 5.38%, the best performance of the CAC 40.
Deutsche Bank takes 1.27%, the market welcoming the statements of its CFO to the daily Handelsblatt on the group’s ability to achieve its main profitability target.
On the decline, the Polish parcel delivery group InPost fell 9.73% after growth deemed disappointing in the fourth quarter.
RATE
Yields on US Treasuries vary little while awaiting employment statistics in the United States, but they remain close to the highs to which the Fed’s “minutes” propelled them: the ten-year, which exceeded 1 , 75% Thursday for the first time since April, is displayed at 1.7266%.
Its German equivalent takes a little more than a basis point to -0.054% after the euro zone inflation statistics. It climbed Thursday in session to -0.031%, the highest since May 2019.
CHANGES
The dollar is losing ground against the other major currencies (-0.14%) before the figures for American employment and after those for inflation in the euro zone, which benefit the single currency: the latter reached 1, 1319 shortly after the release of Eurostat figures before falling back to 1.13.
The greenback is currently posting a weekly gain of just under 0.2% after two weeks of decline, a rebound that mainly hurt the yen.
On the cryptocurrency side, bitcoin continues to decline (-1.92%) and hit its lowest level since the end of September, under $ 41,000 against 69,000 at its highest in November.
OIL
The oil market is up sharply and is heading towards its strongest weekly growth since mid-December, tensions in Kazakhstan and the decrease in Libyan production, disrupted by maintenance work, ensuring it a double support.
Brent gained 0.76% to 82.61 dollars a barrel and US light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) 0.69% to 80.01 dollars.
Both show gains of more than 6% over the week as a whole.
(Report Marc Angrand, edited by Blandine Hénault)