(Paris) European stocks rose again on Friday on well-received corporate results and hopes for more accommodative central banks in the coming months, but Wall Street was more mixed.
European stock markets are still in the green. Paris gained 0.45%, setting a new record above 7500 points. Frankfurt took 0.39%, London 0.58% and Milan 0.78% around 7:30 a.m. (Eastern time).
After strong gains on Thursday, Wall Street is heading for a mixed open between 0.1% and -0.5% depending on the futures.
In Asia, Tokyo gained 1.20%, driven by the ovation of investors after the results of the ready-to-wear giant Fast Retailing (8.49%). Shanghai took 0.60% and Hong Kong 0.46%.
On Thursday, the evolution of producer prices in the United States, which fell in March compared to February, rejoiced investors.
“Expectations of a peak in monetary tightening, particularly after the string of weaker than expected macro data in the US and elsewhere, are fueling” investor optimism this week, said ActivTrades analyst Pierre Veyret.
A more pronounced slowdown in inflation would allow the US central bank not only to stop raising its key rates after the next meeting in May, but also to lower them by the end of the year.
The key rate is the main tool of a central bank to try to control inflation, via an increase in the cost of credit, but this policy also leads to a slowdown in the economy.
In the euro zone, inflation is expected to continue to decline in the coming months thanks to falling energy prices and rate hikes, but there are still “considerable uncertainties”, ECB President Christine Lagarde warned on Friday. .
Moreover, the quarterly corporate earnings season continues to gain momentum.
JPMorgan Chase announced record first-quarter revenue, well above analysts’ expectations, and net profit up 52% to $12.6 billion.
The largest U.S. bank by asset size, however, has set aside an additional $1.1 billion to deal with possible defaults from its customers, mostly due to a “deteriorating economic outlook.”
The stock was up 6.11% in pre-trade electronic trading.
For its part, Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, published declining first-quarter results on Friday, penalized by the decline in financial markets, but which came in better than expected. The stock was up 1.9% before the start of trading.
British clothing brand Superdry fell 17% after reporting that “sales performance remains challenging”, leading it to withdraw its forecast of being “broadly break even” for its 2023 financial year.
The veterinary laboratory Dechra Pharmaceuticals soared more than 34% in London, after announcing a potential takeover offer from the Swedish fund EQT which would value it at 4.6 billion pounds (5.2 billion euros).
On the foreign exchange market, the dollar continued to fall against the euro on Friday, weighed down by the data of the last few days on inflation, which were less vigorous than expected, opening the door to a slowdown by the Fed. The euro was trading for $1.1005 (0.4%) around 7:20 a.m. EST.
Oil prices were still stagnating on Friday, caught in the headwinds of a market that is expected to tighten sharply in the coming months with production cuts in exporting countries and fears of recession on the consumer side. The barrel of American WTI rose 0.38% to 82.47 dollars around 7:15 a.m. (Eastern time) and that of Brent from the North Sea gained 0.36% to 86.40 dollars.
