2023-11-03 21:04:18
New York (awp/afp) – The European stock markets signed their best week since March, and that of New York posted its strong weekly increase of the year, helped by the relaxation of interest rates, increased on Friday following the report on American employment.
The pan-European EuroStoxx 600 index gained 0.17% on Friday, allowing it to close the week with an increase of 3.41%, not seen since the end of March, and the rebound following the crisis of American regional banks.
On Friday, Milan gained 0.69%, Frankfurt 0.30%, while Paris lost 0.19% and London 0.39%.
In the United States the progression was even stronger during the session and over the week: the Nasdaq rose by 1.38%, the S&P 500 gained 0.94% and the Dow Jones by 0.66%. Over the week, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 gained more than 6% and 5% for the Dow Jones.
These performances come following several gloomy months for stocks.
Job creation slowed more than expected in October in the United States, due in particular to the historic strike at the three major American automobile manufacturers, and the unemployment rate is up slightly, to 3.9%, according to Department of Labor data.
“The Federal Reserve might not reasonably hope for a better employment report,” summarizes Craig Erlam, analyst at Oanda.
This slowdown is a good thing for investors, who hope that the deterioration of the economy will push the American Central Bank (Fed) to put aside the key rate increases, used to fight inflation, and even that Rate cuts might be considered earlier than currently.
“This will have to be one of the many positive economic reports in the coming months before the Fed is ready to declare victory,” Mr. Erlam adds.
On Wednesday, the Fed announced a status quo on its key rates and investors deduced from the speech of the president of the monetary institution, Jerome Powell, that the Fed is finished with rate increases.
As a result, interest rates on government bonds on the bond market fell once more, following sharp declines in recent days.
Around 8:30 p.m. GMT, the yield on the 10-year United States debt fell to 4.57%, while it was still at 4.93% at the close on Tuesday. Its French equivalent fell to 3.23%, the lowest in more than a month.
On the side of the European Central Bank, Isabel Schnabel, member of the executive board, estimated that the institution must not “close the door to a further increase” in interest rates on a potentially unstable path to bring inflation to 2 % by 2025.
This differential between the assessments of the policies of the two central banks brought the euro, which gained 1.04% once morest the dollar, to 1.0732 dollars per euro.
Apple disappoints
The technology giant Apple, the most valuable company on the stock market in the world, disappointed investors by announcing a slight drop in its revenues in the fourth quarter of its staggered financial year. The action of the iPhone maker lost 0.52%.
Maersk in the swell
Danish shipping giant Maersk saw its net profit fall 17-fold in the third quarter, to $521 million, and its turnover fall 47%, to $12.13 billion, following a strong year in 2022.
Faced with these sluggish results linked to the drop in freight prices and volumes, Maersk will cut 3,500 additional positions following having reduced its workforce by 6,500 positions during the first nine months of the year.
Its stock fell 16.93% in Copenhagen.
Oil in decline
Oil prices have fallen on a market which does not anticipate an extension of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, while American indicators raise fears of a slowdown in consumption.
The price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea fell by 2.26%, to close at $84.89. Its American equivalent, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), fell 2.36% to $80.51.
Bitcoin lost 0.88% to $34,609.
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