The indices fluctuated little over the session. Paris fell slightly by 0.07%, as did London (-0.14%). Frankfurt rose 0.35% and Milan 0.39%. In Zurich, the SMI lost 0.75%.
Stock markets did not show a trend on Wednesday, showing a wait-and-see attitude before the announcements of the American Federal Reserve on its monetary policy and the results of American technological giants.
The Fed’s decision will be announced in a statement at 7:00 p.m. GMT and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will hold a press conference 30 minutes later.
European indices fluctuated little over the session. Paris fell slightly by 0.07%, as did London (-0.14%). Frankfurt rose 0.35% and Milan 0.39%. In Zurich, the SMI lost 0.75%.
The New York Stock Exchange evolved a little more in the red. Around 5:00 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones index yielded 0.91%, the Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, 0.27% and the broader S&P 500 index 0.44%.
The bond market was also little changed at this point: 10-year US government bond yields were around 3.49%.
Investors will be focused not so much on the size of the Fed’s rate hike, expected by a quarter of a point, as on the speech of the institution’s president Jerome Powell which should give indications on the evolution of the rate this year.
“Will he try to push back on the idea of an upcoming easing of financial conditions (…) as the market hopes that the Fed will soon pause and even reduce its rate hikes? before the end of the year?” asks Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com, reflecting the questions of investors.
For Sebastian Paris Horvitz, analyst at LBPAM, given the dynamics of service prices, “there is still a long way to go”, before getting closer to the 2% inflation target, and the challenge for central banks is to “nip in the bud any expectation of falling inflation”.
The US job market remains stronger, according to the monthly ADP/Stanford Lab survey.
On Thursday, markets will turn to Europe, where the ECB and BoE are both expected to hike rates by 0.5 percentage points.
In the euro zone, the rise in consumer prices slowed markedly in January, for the third month in a row, but inflation excluding energy and food prices remained at 5.2%, a record level, well above the 2% inflation ceiling set by the ECB.
For Yann Azuelos, fund manager at Mirabaud, “the ECB is in a complex situation because there is a risk of non-effectiveness of its rate increases on inflation”.
Among today’s results
Snap stock fell 13.75%. His Snapchat social network continues to gain users and lose money.
The chipmaker AMD climbed 7.21% after the announcement of quarterly results that beat forecasts.
The video game publisher Electronic Arts fell 11.72%, after disappointing projections, between the delay in the release of the next Star Wars opus and the cancellation of two mobile games.
The British telephony group Vodafone (-2.08% in London) unveiled a slightly eroded turnover for its third quarter shifted due to the slowdown in Europe, despite a “resilient performance in Africa”.
The share of the Swiss pharmaceutical group Novartis fell 2.72% in Zurich, after the announcement of a net profit down 91% in the fourth quarter of 2022, taking into account an exceptional gain a year earlier.
Darktrace defends itself against any accounting irregularity
The action of the computer security company recovered 4.42% in London, after having plunged at the beginning of the week on allegations of accounting irregularities by an American investment fund, denied by the company.
On the side of currencies and oil
Around 4:55 p.m. GMT, a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in April, which is the first day of use as a benchmark contract, lost 1.98% to 83.79 dollars.
Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in March, fell 1.42% to 77.75 dollars.
On the foreign exchange market, the euro rose 0.51% to 1.0918 dollars for one euro.
Bitcoin was stable at $22,980.