Paris (+1.36%) and Frankfurt (+0.98%) stand out for their clear progress, while London (-0.02%) and Milan (-0.29%) are less resilient.
Corporate results sparked optimism in European markets on Thursday as Wall Street played it safe despite solid performances from major groups including Tesla, reluctant to take too much risk ahead of central bankers’ speeches.
In Europe, Paris (+1.36%) and Frankfurt (+0.98%) stood out for their strong progress, while London (-0.02%) and Milan (-0.29%) were less resilient .
After a notable opening up, the American indices fell: the Dow Jones dropped 0.09%, the Nasdaq index 0.72% and the broader S&P 500 index, 0.42% around 4:45 p.m. GMT.
On the debt market, American and European bonds were stretched significantly pending the speeches of the leaders of the three central banks of the United States, the euro zone and the United Kingdom, who will speak at a meeting of the International Monetary Fund.
“For now, investors continue to focus on central bank action and whether their efforts will bring inflation down to a more acceptable level,” said Oanda analyst Craig Erlam.
Since the US central bank prepared investors for an acceleration of its monetary tightening to fight inflation, US yields have started a tonic rise until approaching the 3% mark for the expiry at 10 years and at 30 years.
Around 4:45 p.m. GMT, the 10-year US Treasury bill swelled to 2.94% once morest 2.84% the day before. Its German counterpart, which refers to Europe, rose to 0.94% once morest 0.86% while several officials of the European Central Bank (ECB) seem to want to pave the way for less and less accommodating measures.
A rate hike “in July is possible,” said the vice-president of the institution, Luis de Guindos, in an interview with the Bloomberg agency.
Market operators are now expecting three key interest rate hikes from the European Central Bank to bring it back above zero by the end of the year.
The ECB “must respond to the shock of inflation but cannot do much regarding the imbalance in the energy markets,” said Bruno Cavalier, chief economist at Oddo BHF.
After rising quite sharply in the morning, the European currency yielded 0.17% to 1.0834 dollars for one euro.
Bitcoin gained 1.15% to $41,911.
American Airlines optimistic for the coming months
American Airlines continued to lose money in the first quarter, with a start to the year affected by the Omicron variant of Covid-19, but demand for travel is strong and, following record sales in March, the company s expects to be profitable in the second quarter.
Its stock rose more than 4% around 4:35 p.m. GMT.
Tesla at full speed
Tesla managed to increase its first-quarter net profit sevenfold to $3.3 billion, well above analysts’ estimates.
Its action climbed nearly 6% around 4:35 p.m. GMT following soaring more than 10% at the start of the American session. The Tesla boss now says he has the cash to fund a takeover of Twitter and plans to bypass the board if need be in a hostile takeover bid.
ABB cautious for the second quarter
The Swiss-Swedish engineering group ABB published orders well above forecasts in the first quarter. Even if he is cautious for the second quarter given the confinements in China, where one of his factories has been shut down for three weeks, his title concluded up 4.92%.
Oil is on the rise once more
Oil prices resumed their march forward, concerns regarding the erosion of demand for black gold giving way to that of a tightening of supply, between the war in Ukraine and the closure of oil sites in Libya.
Around 4:35 p.m. GMT, a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in June took 1.14% to 108.02 dollars.
The barrel of American West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery the same month, which is the first day of use as a benchmark contract, gained 1.83% to 104.06 dollars.