by Laetitia Volga

PARIS (Reuters) – Wall Street is expected to open without a clear trend and European stock markets give ground on Friday for the last session of a week marked by the wait-and-see attitude of investors before meetings of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank in a few days.

The “futures” on New York indices signal an opening down 0.22% for the Dow Jones, 0.11% for the Standard & Poor’s-500 and an increase of only 0.01% for the Nasdaq.

In Paris, the CAC 40 lost 0.35% to 7,196.57 around 11:09 GMT. In Frankfurt, the Dax yields 0.3% and in London, the FTSE 0.42%.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index fell by 0.34%, the EuroStoxx 50 of the euro zone by 0.33% and the Stoxx 600 by 0.37%.

The sessions have followed and resembled each other for several days, with investors showing caution while awaiting monetary policy announcements from the Fed especially (Wednesday) and the ECB (Thursday).

The – hoped for – scenario of a pause by the US central bank is favored by a majority of observers, but the risk of a further rate increase cannot be ruled out.

Banks in Canada and Australia thwarted expectations by raising their key rates in the face of too high inflation. For this same reason, the ECB is widely expected to opt for another quarter point hike.

“Our view on the Fed is that they want to take a break… We expect them to keep the door open for a hike in July, however,” Mohit Kumar said at Jefferies.

“The ECB is in a slightly different position as we don’t believe it is in ‘sufficiently restrictive territory’ yet. We expect a hike in June and July; this should mark the end of the current hike cycle,” added the strategist.

VALUES IN EUROPE

British chemical group Croda fell 12.82% to its lowest level in nearly three years after an annual pre-tax profit forecast fell short of expectations.

In its wake, the sector index lost 2%; Bayer, BASF, Givaudan and Symrise fell from 1.48% to 4.82%.

Vivendi lost 2.38% after announcing its forthcoming exit from the CAC 40, which will include Edenred (+0.33%).

On the SBF 120 side, Dassault Systèmes fell 1.43%, due to a medium-term net profit per share target slightly worse than expected, and Scor won 4.77%, the group having announced that he Augustin de Romanet assumed the interim of his presidency following the death of Denis Kessler.

In Milan, Monte dei Paschi dropped 4.47% after rival BPER Banca said it was not at all interested in a merger with the Tuscan establishment.

RATE

Ten-year US Treasury yield at 3.7549% erases some of the previous day’s losses following the announcement of a bigger-than-expected increase in the number of jobless claims in the United States .

The ten-year German is almost stable, at 2.417%.

CHANGES

The dollar appreciated by 0.18% against the other major currencies, including the euro, which was at 1.076.

The Turkish lira, continuing its descent, hit a new low at 23.53 to the dollar, despite President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s appointment of Hafize Gaye Erkan as head of the country’s central bank, a former executive at First Republic and Goldman Sachs advocate a return to financial orthodoxy.

OIL

The oil market is progressing slightly but should remain stable over the week, due to concerns about demand and the upcoming reduction in Saudi production.

Brent gained 0.25% to 76.15 dollars a barrel and US light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) 0.24% to 71.46 dollars.

(Laetitia Volga, editing by Kate Entringer)

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