(ABM FN) The Brussels stock market will open significantly higher on Monday, after Wall Street convincingly found its way up on Friday evening. Futures on the Euro Stoxx 50 index pointed to a gain of one and a half percent about an hour before the stock market bell.
On Friday, the Bel20 dropped 1.4 percent to 4,047.55 points. Reluctance due to the prospect of US interest rate hikes and instability in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, among other things, weighed on sentiment. A reluctant opening on Wall Street in the afternoon, after a sharp loss to tech exchange Nasdaq a day earlier, also motivated investors to look on the sidelines in the run-up to the weekend.
However, investors in Brussels were misled.
An hour and a half before the closing buzz in New York, the S&P 500 staged a remarkable rally of about 100 points on Friday night, leading the main index to end the trading day with a gain of 2.4 percent. This was the largest daily increase since June 2020. Tech exchange Nasdaq even gained more than 3 percent.
Apple, the world’s most expensive company by market capitalization, climbed nearly 7 percent after submitting convincing quarterly figures after trading on Thursday. Apple’s reporting allayed some fears that the tech sector’s long period of rapid growth could come to an end, as well as the stocks of other major tech companies, which earlier this month sparked the plunge in the tech sector. stock markets, were on the rise. Alphabet and Amazon, among others, rose 3 to 4 percent, after trading in the red earlier in the trading day.
The advance on Wall Street this morning does not lead to euphoria in Asia, where the stock markets in Tokyo and Hong Kong gained just over 1 percent. The Sydney stock exchange, with a relatively heavy weighting of banks and commodity stocks, even loses several tenths of a percent. In mainland China, markets will remain closed this week for the Chinese New Year celebrations.
The US oil future also climbed more than 1 percent in Asia this morning to almost $ 88 a barrel. Last week, a barrel of WTI was already worth 2 percent more on a weekly basis. Tensions between Russia and Ukraine are still hanging over the market.
ECB and BoE on the move
This week it is the turn of the European Central Bank. While the Fed is planning several rate hikes, the ECB has said so far not to raise interest rates this year. Investors are therefore curious about what chairman Christine Lagarde has to say on Thursday.
Inflation in the eurozone stood at 5.0 percent in December. Preliminary figures for January will be published on Wednesday. Barclays economists do not rule out that if those data surprise negatively, and inflation has risen even more, this will force the ECB to take a more hawkish tone.
The Bank of England, like the ECB, meets on Thursday. After the British central bank surprised the markets in December with an interest rate hike from 0.10 percentage point to 0.25 percent, the market is counting on a further increase of another 25 basis points for the upcoming interest rate decision. Economists at the Japanese bank Nomura are counting on British interest rates to rise every quarter this year.
The earnings season is now in full swing, but for the time being it has been quiet in our own country.
On the macroeconomic front, today’s focus will mainly be on the preliminary German inflation in January.
Company news
Smartphoto Group saw its turnover and EBITDA rise sharply in 2021. The REBITDA was lower year-on-year by 11.2 percent to 10.5 million euros.
VGP opened an office in Athens, Greece and appointed Stratos Iliou as the person responsible.
KBC Ancora posted a profit of 224 million euros in the first half of the current financial year. In the same period a year earlier, KBC Ancora still suffered a loss of 8 million euros.
Wall Street closing positions
The S&P 500 rose 2.4 percent Friday at 4,431.85 points, the Dow Jones index gained 1.7 percent at 34,725.47 points and the Nasdaq closed 3.1 percent in the green at 13,770.57 points.
Bron: ABM Financial News
From Beursplein 5, the editors of ABM Financial News keep a close eye on developments on the stock exchanges, and the Amsterdam stock exchange in particular. The information in this column is not intended as professional investment advice or as a recommendation to make certain investments.
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