by Claude Chendjou

PARIS (Reuters) – European stock markets ended down on Friday, while Wall Stret attempted a mid-session rebound after finishing in the red the day before in reaction to comments considered restrictive by Jerome Powell, the president of the American Federal Reserve (Fed).

In Paris, the CAC 40 ended down 0.96% at 7,045.04 points. The British Footsie lost 1.28% and the German Dax lost 0.77%.

The EuroStoxx 50 index fell by 0.75% and the FTSEurofirst 300 by 0.95%. The Stoxx 600, which hit a three-week high on Thursday, fell 1%.

Over the week as a whole, the CAC dropped 0.03% and the Stoxx 600 0.21%.

At the close in Europe, the Dow Jones advanced by 0.53%, the Standard & Poor’s 500 by 0.82% and the Nasdaq by 1.26% after a drop from 0.65% to almost 1% on Thursday. .

While on Wall Street, investors seem to have digested the words of Jerome Powell, who declared Thursday evening that Fed officials “were not convinced” that interest rates were high enough to fight against inflation, in Europe, the trend ended on a negative note the day after a positive session.

Global market sentiment was generally gloomy on Friday, with the MSCI World Index falling to a one-week low of 659.86 points and heading into a fourth straight session in the red .

The remarks on Friday by Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), according to which inflation in the euro zone could start to rise again in the months to come, further weighed down the markets in Europe.

Investors, however, continue to believe that the rates of the major central banks will fall next year in view of the surveys published this week and are particularly awaiting the macroeconomic data which will be published next week, in particular inflation and retail sales statistics. in the USA.

VALUES IN EUROPE

Among the major sectors of the European market, luxury (-2.67%) particularly suffered after the results and forecasts of Richemont (-5.2%), which led to its fall LVMH (-3.82%) , Kering (-3.33%) and Hermès (-1.55%).

Scor plunged 3.49% after a quarterly result below expectations, while the increase in JCDecaux’s quarterly turnover was, however, welcomed.

In London Diageo fell by 12.17% after a warning on its organic growth.

TODAY’S INDICATORS

The British economy stagnated between July and September, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

American household morale has deteriorated since the start of November, to 60.4 points, compared to October, according to the preliminary survey by the University of Michigan.

CHANGES

The dollar index, measuring the fluctuations of the note against a basket of reference currencies, was stable (+0.05%) on Friday.

Against the Japanese currency, it is heading towards its best weekly performance in three months and reached a peak of almost a year in session, at 151.43 yen.

The euro is trading up 0.08% to $1.0674 and the pound sterling is down 0.1% to $1.2209.

As for cryptocurrencies, bitcoin gained 2.02% to $37,435 amid speculation about the imminent approval of BlackRock’s “Bitcoin spot ETF”.

RATE

The ten-year German Bund yield ended with a gain of more than five basis points, at 2.718%, with several ECB officials having rejected the prospect of an imminent drop in interest rates.

In the United States, the yield on ten-year Treasuries, which rose more than 12 basis points on Thursday, fell by around one point on Friday, to 4.6142%.

OIL

Oil is heading towards a third consecutive weekly loss of around 5%, despite Friday’s rebound, with concerns about demand prevailing.

At the close of trading in Europe, Brent gained 1.82% to $81.47 per barrel and American light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) gained 1.91% to $77.19.

(Written by Claude Chendjou, edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)

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