by Claude Chendjou

PARIS (Reuters) – Wall Street is expected to be slightly in the green at the opening and the European stock markets are also progressing timidly halfway through a volatile session while the indices are at record levels and the day is marked by ” three witches”, the expiration of several options and futures contracts.

New York index futures signal Wall Street opening down 0.2% for the Dow Jones, 0.18% for the Standard & Poor’s 500 and 0.11% for the Nasdaq.

In Paris, around 12:00 GMT, the CAC 40 advanced 0.58% to 8,208.53 points, getting closer to its historic peak of 8,218.07 points, recorded on Thursday. In Frankfurt, the Dax, which also hit a record the day before in the session at 18,039.05 points, gained 0.42%. In London, the FTSE rose 0.22%.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index increased by 0.32%. The EuroStoxx 50 of the euro zone gained 0.58% the day after its record of 5,031.82 points. The Stoxx 600, up 0.32%, is close to its record reached the day before at 509.31 points.

Over the week as a whole, the CAC 40 gained 2.25% at this stage and the Stoxx 600 0.95%.

The positive trend, although fragile due to the “three witches” and recent mixed indicators, as well as uncertainties about the extent of the rate cut, is once again fueled by the hope of monetary easing before the end of the first semester.

After the European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank of England (BoE) and the American Federal Reserve (Fed) meet next week and investors hope that the central bankers will provide information on the evolution of the economy and the trajectory of rates.

In France, inflation harmonized with European standards stood at 3.2% over one year in February, after a “flash” estimate of 3.1% and an increase of 3.4% in January.

In Britain, consumer inflation expectations, published by the BoE, show a slowdown to 3% this year compared to 3.3% in the November survey.

For today’s session, the market will take note in the United States of the monthly figures for industrial production at 12:15 p.m. GMT and household morale, calculated by the University of Michigan at 1:00 p.m. GMT.

VALUES TO FOLLOW AT WALL STREET

Adobe plunges 11.4% in pre-market trading, the Photoshop publisher having announced Thursday evening that it anticipates a turnover for the current quarter of between 5.25 billion and 5.30 billion dollars against a consensus of 5 .31 billion dollars.

VALUES IN EUROPE

In Europe, practically all major sectors of the Stoxx 600 are in the green, the most marked increases being for telecoms (+1.48%) and basic resources (+0.78%), while the compartment of real estate (-0.67%) showed the largest decline.

The German real estate group Vonovia fell 6.19% after publishing its biggest annual loss for 2023 due to further depreciation of its assets.

Swisscom takes 3.65% thanks to the acquisition of Vodafone Italia, a subsidiary of the British group Vodafone (+4.19%), which will merge with Fastweb.

In Paris, the pharmaceutical laboratory Euroapi collapsed by 23.55% after the suspension of its recent outlook for 2024.

CHANGES

The dollar is stable against a basket of reference currencies but is heading towards a weekly gain (+0.6% at this stage) after three weeks in a row in the red.

The euro advanced 0.08%, to $1.089, while the pound sterling remained at $1.2749.

RATE

The yield on ten-year US Treasury bonds fell by around three basis points to 4.2786% following an increase of 9.8 points.

The yield on the German Bund of the same maturity is stable, at 2.428% after a gain of 6.2 points the day before.

OIL

The oil market, which fell on Friday, is nevertheless heading towards a gain of more than 3% over the whole week thanks to the increase in crude demand forecasts for this year from the International Energy Agency ( IEA) and an unexpected drop in US crude stocks last week.

Around 12:00 GMT, Brent fell 0.54% to $84.96 per barrel and American light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) fell 0.6% to $80.77.

(Written by Claude Chendjou)

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