2023-12-18 21:27:09
New York (awp/afp) – Western stock markets returned to calm waters on Monday, following a turbulent week, on a market which is starting to lack operators as the end-of-year holidays approach.
Among the European stock markets, Paris lost 0.37%, Frankfurt 0.60% and Milan 0.44%. London advanced 0.50%, driven by oil stocks. In Zurich, the SMI dropped 0.32%.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones ended in balance, the Nasdaq index returned 0.61% and the broader S&P 500 index gained 0.45%.
The bond market reacted, without fervor, to the comments of the president of the branch of the American central bank (Fed) in Chicago, Austan Goolsbee, who affirmed that the members of the Fed were not yet discussing rate cuts for the ‘moment.
On Wednesday, however, Fed President Jerome Powell said the opposite.
The yield on 10-year US government bonds stood at 3.94%, compared to 3.91% on Friday, at the close.
“The start of the week was not the most exciting, but that was to be expected given the number of major events that occurred in recent sessions and the absence of significant events today,” comments Oanda analyst Craig Erlam.
The markets largely reacted last week to announcements from central banks, notably the American Federal Reserve, whose members discussed a timetable for lowering key interest rates.
“We have reached the period where it is quite tempting to take profits, following” the sharp rise in stocks “for a month and a half and before the end of the year,” observes Alexandre Neuvy, director of private management at Amplegest .
Black alert in the Red Sea ___
In recent weeks, Yemeni rebels, close to Iran, have increased attacks near the strategic Bab al-Mandeb strait, which separates the Arabian Peninsula from Africa.
Oil prices soared, driven by concerns over supply difficulties via the trade route, following several global shipping giants announced their ships would avoid the Red Sea.
After the Danish Maersk (+3.09% in Copenhagen), the German Hapag-Lloyd (+8.82% in Frankfurt), the French CMA CGM and the Italian-Swiss MSC, it is the Taiwanese Evergreen which announced Monday to suspend the crossing of the Red Sea, the last major shipping company to make such a decision.
The British hydrocarbon giant BP (+1.66% in London) also decreed the same.
The price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea, for delivery in February, rose 1.82%, to close at $77.95.
Its American equivalent, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), with maturity in January, gained 1.45%, to $72.47.
Oil stocks followed the trend in hydrocarbon prices: Shell advanced by 1.36% in London, TotalEnergies by 1.17% in Paris, Eni by 1.28% in Milan, Equinor by 2.65% in Oslo and ExxonMobil by 0.74% in New York.
The German car stalls ___
In Frankfurt, Volkswagen (-1.00%), Mercedes (-1.29%) and BMW (-1.98%) fell following the German government decided to abruptly end aid for car purchases electrical, due to budgetary constraints.
On the side of currencies and bitcoin ___
On the foreign exchange market, the yen fell once morest most currencies, on the eve of a monetary policy decision by the Bank of Japan (BoJ). Around 9:15 p.m. GMT, the Japanese currency lost 0.55% to 142.93 yen per dollar.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange ended down 0.64%.
The yen is weighed down by the BoJ’s “ultra-accommodative” monetary policy, going once morest the grain of other central banks, and investors are waiting for signs of a change of direction.
“There is only a small probability that the BoJ will exit the territory of negative rates this week,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, analyst at Swissquote, on Monday.
As for the euro, it rose by 0.22% to 1.0920 dollars per euro.
Bitcoin rose 1.01% to $42,372.
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