(Paris) Global stock markets are still in bad shape on Friday due to fears about the Chinese economy and a stricter monetary policy from the American central bank, which has led to an increase in interest rates.
In Europe, Paris lost 0.38%, Milan 0.42%, London and Frankfurt 0.65%. Over the week as a whole, the pan-European Stoxx600 index fell 2.34%, its biggest drop since early July.
After a sharply lower open, Wall Street was trying to recover: around 11:50 a.m. (ET), the Dow Jones was up 0.15%, but the S
In Asia, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange lost 2.05% (-5.89% over the week), weighed down by investor risk aversion after the real estate giant’s application for bankruptcy in the United States Chinese Evergrande.
Markets are in a “summer storm”, marked this year by “rising interest rates, deteriorating data in China and lack of liquidity”, said Emmanuel Cau, European equity analyst at Barclays.
Now, investors’ “complacency” about China’s economic situation “is gone,” but without “full-scale fiscal stimulus,” sentiment toward China is “unlikely to reverse sustainably.” of itself,” he continues.
The global MSCI World index is thus heading towards its worst week since March, at the time of the banking crisis.
Besides China, investors were surprised by the minutes of the last US Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting, which dampened their hopes that the central bank would not proceed with further rate hikes.
The yield on the 10-year US bond hit its highest since 2007 on Thursday. On Friday, an easing was observed: around 11:40 a.m. (Eastern time), it stood at 4.23%, against 4 .28% at the previous day’s close. The decline was more marked in Europe: the rate of the French 10-year loan ended Friday at 3.16%, against 3.25% the day before and a peak at 3.27% on Tuesday.
The real estate sector suffered from worries about the situation in China. Shopping center giant Unibail Rodamco Westfield lost 2.16% in France, Vonovia 1.94% in Frankfurt and British Land Compagny 1.65% in London.
The American beauty products group Estée Lauder lost 1.77% after a fall of more than 4% in first trade, as cosmetics sales suffered from the sluggish recovery in its Asian markets, particularly in China.
In Paris, L’Oréal fell by 1.11%.
A day after falling nearly 40% on disappointing financial results, payments group Adyen fell another 2.94% on Friday.
Bitcoin fell 5.90% to $26,010, its biggest one-week drop since November 2022 (-11.5%), a victim of investor risk aversion.
Oil prices rose a little on Friday, but remained sharply lower for the week as a whole, the market worried about demand from China.
Around 11:40 a.m., a barrel of Brent North Sea, for October delivery, gained 0.32% to 84.39 dollars and its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), for September delivery, 0.48% to $80.78. Both benchmarks lost around 2.8% for the week as a whole.
In the foreign exchange market, the euro was stable against the dollar at $1.0870 to the euro, and the pound fell 0.10% to $1.2734.
