The Paris Stock Exchange relapsed on Thursday, after its spectacular surge yesterday. While the rebound of more than 7% on Wednesday had been fueled by various hopes, most of them have been thwarted today: no diplomatic solution to the war has been found during the latest talks between Russia and Ukraine (the meeting this Thursday between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in Antalya, Turkey, ended without any progress) and the European Central Bank did not delay the tightening of its monetary policy.
At the end of its meeting, the ECB announced this afternoon that it was going to reduce the amount of its purchases under the APP (the classic asset purchase programme) to 40 billion euros. euros in April, 30 billion in May and 20 billion in June, against a previous plan of 40 billion in the second quarter, 30 billion in the third, then 20 billion in the fourth. The big money from Frankfurt has also confirmed the end of the emergency purchase program in the face of the pandemic (PEPP) at the end of the month.
“Far from delaying its plan to tighten its monetary policy, the bank has accelerated the pace of reducing its purchases, which it could completely halt in the third quarter. This would pave the way for rate hikes in the second half of the year.”, summarizes the economist Andrew Kenningham of Capital Economics. For him, the ECB seems “more concerned about the prospect of further accelerating inflation than about the negative demand shock expected to result from the war in Ukraine.”
Inflation at more than 5% in the euro zone this year
the Bedroom 40 ends down 2.83% to 6,207.20 points. Stellantisthe banks Agricultural credit and Societe Generale as well as’Alstom posted the biggest declines of the day, erasing most of their strong rise from yesterday. In New York, the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 drop more than 1% and the Nasdaq Composite drops 2%. In the United States, consumer prices rose 7.9% year on year in February, their highest level since 1982, after 7.5% in January.
During the press conference following the ECB meeting, the institution’s president, Christine Lagarde, signaled that inflation could be considerably higher in the short term before stabilizing around 2% in the coming months. horizon 2024, which is close to the ECB’s objective. According to the central bank’s new projections, inflation should reach 5.1% in 2022 (from 3.2%), 2.1% in 2023 (revised from 1.8%) and 1.9% in 2024 ( against 1.8% estimated in February). Eurozone GDP growth forecasts have been revised downwards. It should reach 3.7% this year (against 4.2% estimated in February), 2.8% in 2023 (against 2.9%) and 1.6%, as expected, in 2024.
Christine Lagarde indicated that the debates were very lively within the Board, with different opinions around the table, but in the end, all the members supported the Management Board’s proposal with determination. To a journalist questioning her on the scenario favored by the ECB, the president indicated that there was none, except for an unfavorable scenario and another more. ” strict “.
In the end, this Thursday, of the three hopes that made the Cac 40 rebound strongly yesterday, only one was not disappointed – at least for the moment: that of seeing the Heads of State and Government of the EU announce, at the end of the European summit, a new recovery plan to help member countries finance their energy bills. The Twenty-Seven are meeting in Versailles today and tomorrow for a European summit.