The main European stock exchanges are down at the start of the session on Thursday, concerns about the rate of rising interest rates in the United States and Europe continuing to focus the attention of investors. In Paris, the CAC 40 PX1 lost 0.37% to 7,207.48 points at 08:53 GMT. In London, the FTSE 100 UK100 lost 0.32% and in Frankfurt, the Dax Dax fell 0.46%. The EuroStoxx 50 Stoxx50 index is down 0.36%, the FTSEurofirst 300 (.fteu3) by 0.58% and the Stoxx 600 SXXP by 0.09%. Published earlier in the week, inflation figures in several major European countries were established above expectations.
Analysts therefore have little hope of seeing tensions over prices weaken throughout the euro area. Eurostat must publish its first estimate of the evolution of consumer prices in February at 10:00 GMT. “There is not much suspense that the statistics will disappoint (…) It is very likely that inflation will reach the 8.2% expected on average by analysts,” commented Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank.
The presidency of the ECB Christine Lagarde, speaking on Spanish television, said that other rate hikes beyond March will be possible based on the incoming data and that for the time being the inflation remains too high. In the United States,
manufacturing activity contracted again last month, but it is above all the rise in an index on the prices of raw materials that worries, the latest sign of tenacious inflation. On the government bond market, the yield on US Treasury bills at ten years US 10th has exceeded the symbolic threshold of 4% and the two years
(US2YT = RR), even more sensitive to the evolution of key rates, has reached a peak since 2007 at 4.937%. The German ten-year yield (DE10YT = RR) rose in session to 2.77%, its highest level since 2011. In the stock market, STMicroelectronics STM (-4.97%) shows the largest drop in the Stoxx 600, Tesla having announced during its Investor Day to have designed its own transistor which requires 75% of silicon carbide in less analysts.
After opening in the green, Veolia fell 0.72% despite record results in 2022.
Vallourec VK climbed 4.14% and Technip Energies TE by 4.49% after their results while Covestro 1COV (-4.12%) and AB InBev (-2.79%) are in red after theirs.
