The Paris Bourse fell 2.04% to 6,788.34 points. The Frankfurt market lost 2.07%, that of Amsterdam 2.04% and the Eurostoxx 50, the European benchmark index, fell by 2.17%. In Zurich, the SMI lost 0.98%.
European stock markets ended sharply lower on Monday, weighed down by worsening tensions in Ukraine, where Westerners fear a flare-up of conflict.
“Geopolitical risk dominates absolutely everything,” notes Alexandre Baradez, analyst at IG France.
The Parisian rating had however started the day on the rise, thanks to the hope of a possible meeting between the American and Russian presidents.
This optimism was showered by the Kremlin, which then deemed it “premature” to organize a summit.
In the middle of the day, it was an announcement by the Russian army that caused the CAC 40 index to plunge by more than 2%, just like other European indices.
Moscow on Monday accused Ukrainian “saboteurs” of entering Russia and claimed that a Russian border crossing had been destroyed by Ukrainian artillery, which Ukraine has categorically denied.
Russia says it killed five of these agents and took a Ukrainian soldier prisoner.
In the process, bilateral meetings were announced and Ukraine requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
In addition, Russian President Vladimir Putin will decide on Monday whether he recognizes the independence of the pro-Russian separatist regions of eastern Ukraine, at the risk of setting fire to the powder, at a time when Westerners fear that an incident serve as a pretext for a Russian offensive once morest Ukraine.
Fighting in Ukraine’s breakaway east erupted all weekend.
Alexandre Baradez stresses, however, that “the euro is not moving, a sign that there is no extreme panic” in the markets.
Apart from the geopolitical risk, “there is nothing that moves the market today” adds the analyst, not even the “excellent PMIs for the services part of the French, German and euro zone economies”.
Indeed, following two months of slowdown, the growth of activity in the euro zone accelerated sharply in the private sector in February, taking advantage of the easing of health restrictions, according to the composite PMI index from the firm Markit published on Monday.
Worldline will sell its payment terminals
The French specialist in electronic payments Worldline (-2.86% to 42.90 euros) announced that it had entered into exclusive negotiations to sell its payment terminal activities, valued at 2.3 billion euros, to the Apollo fund in the second half. 2022.
Air France cancels its flights to Ukraine
The airline Air France (-0.22% to 4.03 euros) canceled its two Paris-Kiev and Kiev-Paris flights
scheduled for Tuesday “in view of the situation on site and as a precaution”.
A complicated year 2021 for Faurecia
Faurecia shares lost 5.40% to 37.50 euros. The automotive supplier has had a difficult second year in 2021 with sales of 15.6 billion euros and a small net loss of 79 million euros, as it prepares to buy the German Hello.
Recapitalization project at Atari
Atari announced on Monday a capital increase project of 22 to 25 million euros, via the issue of new shares to consolidate its balance sheet. The company is also considering transferring its listing to Euronext Growth, a simpler market with fewer regulatory constraints. The Atari title fell by more than 18% to 0.26 euros.
