(New York) Western stock markets showed two faces on Thursday, between the surge of processor giant Nvidia, which drove the technology sector, and macroeconomic uncertainties which weighed on the rest of the market.
In Europe, the gloom weighed on investor sentiment: Paris fell 0.3% to its lowest closing level since late March. London lost 0.7% and Milan 0.4%.
Frankfurt dropped 0.3%, as Germany entered a technical recession in the first quarter of 2023, with a second consecutive drop in its gross domestic product (-0.3%).
Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters that “the prospects for the German economy (are) very good”, with the country “overcoming the challenges” it faces.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones fell 0.1%, the NASDAQ index gained 1.7% and the broader S
The graphics card specialist Nvidia presented, on Wednesday after the stock market, sales prospects boosted by the race for artificial intelligence.
Nvidia could be “the big winner in the AI craze, as its chips are well-suited for training data-intensive AI algorithms,” said Swissquote Bank analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya.
The rest of the news was grim, about a week before a possible US default, which caused ratings agency Fitch to place the US AAA rating on “watch”.
“Almost a week of negotiations has gone by and still no visibility on a near outcome,” notes Andrea Tuéni, analyst at Saxo Bank.
The American indicators of the day also confirmed the strength of the American economy, far from the slowdown expected by the American central bank (Fed).
US growth was revised upwards for the first quarter, to 1.3% year on year against 1.1% initially announced, and weekly jobless claims came in below economists’ projections.
“Inflationary pressures remain, forcing central banks to consider possible further rate hikes,” said Angelo Kourkafas of Edward Jones.
This context has caused bond yields to rise sharply for several weeks. On Thursday, the yield on 2-year US government bonds stood at 4.53%, the highest in two and a half months, against 4.37% the previous day at the close.
This high rate environment is bad for equities as it reduces lending and weighs on the economy.
The Santa Clara group gained 24.4% and more than $180 billion in market valuation in Thursday’s session alone.
Carried by the Nvidia surge, many of the major players in AI, in particular so-called generative artificial intelligence, have been sought on Wall Street.
Semiconductor manufacturers AMD (11.2%), Broadcaom (7.3%) or TSMC (12%), Taiwanese, but listed on Wall Street, as well as Microsoft (3.9%) and Alphabet (2. 2%), thus pranced.
In Europe, ASML took 5% and Soitec 7.7%.
The Italian state and Lufthansa (0.3% in Frankfurt) on Thursday sealed an agreement on the entry of the German airline giant into the capital of the public company ITA Airways born from the ashes of Alitalia.
Oil prices fell sharply on Thursday, depressed by the statements of the Russian Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Energy, who ruled out a new drop in production at the end of the next meeting of the OPEC alliance (Organization of oil exporters and its allies), in early June.
The price per barrel of North Sea Brent crude for July delivery fell 2.7%, to close at US$76.26.
As for the barrel of American West Texas Intermediate (WTI) of the same maturity, it lost 3.4%, to US$71.83.
The dollar gained 0.23% against the euro, to 1.0725 dollars for one euro.
Bitcoin was up 0.4% at US$26,491.
