And three! Investors seem to have regained their optimism and the month of February is off to a good start. the Bedroom 40 ended Wednesday’s session up 0.22% to 7,115.27 points, after gaining 1.43% yesterday. It only loses 0.53% since the 1er January.
This boost was favored by two elements: the reassuring words of several officials of the American Federal Reserve (Fed) on the rise in the cost of money and quality publications from the stars of American “tech” . The giant Alphabet (+ 6.7%), parent company of Google, published record results for 2021 on Tuesday evening. Its turnover increased by almost half, while its net profit almost doubled . It was mainly retail sales that sustained the demand for advertising on the internet, a sector largely dominated by Google and Facebook. The semiconductor manufacturer AMD (+4.6%) did not disappoint either: both its fourth quarter results and its forecasts exceeded market expectations. From now on, the group displays a profitability close to that of Intel.
Meeting with Christine Lagarde
In this context, operators viewed the ADP survey on job creations in the American private sector with a certain detachment. Against all expectations, 301,000 jobs were cut last month in the United States, while the consensus was counting on 184,000 net hires. The spread of the Omicron variant is not unrelated to this poor performance, which mainly concerned sectors where employees are in contact with the public, such as hotels, restaurants or leisure. But already, specialists anticipate a rebound in employment in February. ” With the number of infections and hospitalizations now falling in many parts of the country, as rapidly as they had been rising, we expect a huge rebound in the payroll in February, with most of the disruption dissipating from here the end of the quarter says Michael Pierce, senior US economist at Capital Economic. And to add: Even a very poor January jobs report won’t be enough to postpone the Fed’s scheduled March rate hike, although we expect slowing growth this year to limit rate hikes to four, instead of the five integrated by the market. »
What will happen in the euro zone? The boss of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, could give some answers tomorrow. ” “ The case for normalizing ECB monetary policy is growing but a rate hike in 2022 is very unlikely., says Vincent Chaigneau, head of research at Generali Investments. On the other hand, he does not rule out an initial increase in interest rates by 20 basis points in June 2023, given the rise in energy prices and the second-round effects expected in wage negotiations this year. In January, inflation remained high in the euro area. It reached 5.1% over one year, a record that took economists by surprise, who had expected a slowdown to 4.4%.
Rumors about Atos
On the values front, Atos jumped 8.16%. The digital services group’s stock is boosted by rumors of interest from Thales (-3.09%) for its cybersecurity branch. It would join forces with investment funds to submit an offer for Atos, whose stock is at its lowest. It still loses 45% over one year, weighed down by multiple alerts on the results.
Manhandled, Elior dropped 6.84% after a deterioration of Stifel, which went from “keep” to “sell” on the collective catering group. For the broker, the pace of recovery is more moderate than among competitors and free cash flow should remain negative during the current financial year.
Finally, Solvay gained 3.3%. Societe Generale raised its recommendation on the title of the chemist from “sell” to “keep”.
PC