(Paris) World stock markets rose slightly on Friday, after an unsurprising speech by US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who reaffirmed the institution’s determination to fight inflation.
After a session clearly in the green, European stock markets ended up moderately. Paris gained 0.21%, Milan 0.49%. Frankfurt and London ended almost flat at 0.07%. Over the week, they all show positive results.
As for the Wall Street indices, they were mixed around 11:55 a.m. (Eastern time), the Dow Jones was up 0.22%, the S
Jerome Powell, at the annual conference of central bankers in Jackson Hole (USA), declared that “while inflation has slowed since its peak, it remains too high”.
“We stand ready to raise interest rates further if necessary and intend to maintain a tight monetary policy until we are confident that inflation is on a sustainable path towards our target,” he said. -he adds.
For Christophe Boucher, Chief Investment Officer of ABN AMRO Investment Solutions, the speech was “unsurprising”, “without announcement or particular signal” and “similar to the minutes of the last meeting”.
For the monetary policy decision in September and beyond, “it’s all about the data,” said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics. “We think they’re done with the rate hikes but it’s still a 60/40 decision.”
“We are at the peak of key rates and we will stay there for a very long time, probably longer than anticipated by the markets,” said Valérie Rizk, economist at Hugau Gestion.
On the bond market, short-term rates, the maturities most sensitive to monetary policy expectations, are rising moderately.
The yield on US two-year debt stood at 5.06% from 5.02% on Thursday.
Since March 2022, the monetary institution has increased its rates eleven times, to take them from a level close to zero to a range between 5.25% and 5.50%, in order to bring down inflation which has reached around 9% in June 2022, according to the PCE index.
In Europe, movements in the bond market were slightly more pronounced, with increases of 0.04 percentage point for the German 10-year rate and 0.07 percentage point for the two-year rate, which reached 2. 53% and 3.02% around 11:50 a.m. EST.
European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde will also speak in Jackson Hole later on Friday.
British luxury watch retailer Watches of Switzerland has plunged more than 20% in London, despite assurances that the Swiss takeover of retailer Bucherer by Rolex, announced on Thursday, will lead to “no change” in the procedures for manufacturer distribution.
More than two weeks after the deadly fires that almost razed a city in Hawaii, the county of Maui announced Thursday to file a complaint against the main electricity supplier of the archipelago, Hawaiian Electric, accusing it of not having cut the power. current before the disaster.
The action of the group, already targeted by a complaint from residents, fell 16.48% on the New York Stock Exchange.
Oil prices rose on Friday as supply tensions eclipsed fears over the resilience of demand for now, as gas remained below 35 euros after strike threats in Australia receded.
The barrel of Brent from the North Sea advanced 0.86% to 84.10 dollars around 11:50 a.m. (Eastern time) and the barrel of American WTI gained 0.47% to 79.42 dollars. Over the week, however, prices are down.
The euro fell 0.19% to $1.0790.
Bitcoin fell 0.33% to $25,930.
