PARIS (Reuters) – The main European stock markets are on a downward trend on Monday in the first exchanges in a volatile market despite the measures announced by the authorities to try to circumscribe the impact of the collapse of the American bank SVB.

In Paris, the CAC 40 dropped 1.19% to 7,134.57 points around 08:40 GMT. In London, the FTSE 100 lost 0.59% and in Frankfurt, the Dax lost 1.09%.

The EuroStoxx 50 index fell by 1.27%, the FTSEurofirst 300 by 0.55% and the Stoxx 600 by 1.18%, while the volatility index jumped by 5.0% to 22.22 points.

Futures contracts on Wall Street foreshadow a rebound with an increase of 0.68% for the Dow Jones, 1.07% for the Standard & Poor’s 500 and 1.27% for the Nasdaq on a background of revision lower expectations of a rise in short-term interest rates in view of the rout of SVB.

The yield on two-year Treasuries fell 13.2 basis points to 4.45%, far from its peak of 5.08% hit last week, while investors are now betting with a probability of 90% on a limited rate hike of 25 basis points in the United States.

Goldman Sachs analysts said on Sunday, for their part, that they do not expect any further rate hikes from the United States Federal Reserve (Fed) this month and see significant uncertainty beyond March in the light of recent tensions in the sector. banking.

Operating as Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), SVB Financial Group collapsed on the stock market last week after a surprise capital increase intended to make up for a loss of 1.8 billion dollars, following the sale of a bond portfolio. Since then the United Kingdom has said it wants to “avoid the damage” linked to this fall, while in France, the Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire, assured that there was no “specific alert” on the sector in France.

The Fed, for its part, is committed to making funds available, via a new bank financing program, for institutions that need it.

On the stock market, HSBC fell 1.73% after the announcement of the acquisition for one pound sterling of the British subsidiary of SVB, while the French biotechnology company Innate Pharma gained 1.95% after announcing that it was not financially exposed to the American bank.

The banking compartment, down 2.26%, shows the biggest drop in the Stoxx 600 after having already fallen 3.78% on Friday.

In other corporate news, Sanofi lost 1.21% after the announcement of the acquisition of American biotech Provention Bio for 2.9 billion dollars (2.7 billion euros), while SAP gave up 1 .32% after the sale of its stake in the American data analysis company Qualtrics for 7.7 billion dollars.

(Written by Claude Chendjou, edited by Matthieu Protard)

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