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(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) – Archived an octave marked by caution, at the mercy of monetary policy decisions, European stock markets open the first session of the week with a decline, in the wake of the weakness of Asian stock markets. Tokyo closed lower, with the Nikkei index at -0.64% and the Topix index at -0.66%, while Hong Kong also fell, still plagued by concerns about the Chinese economic recovery.
The German Ifo index on business confidence is expected today, while in the next few days investors will look mainly at the inflation data in the United Kingdom on Wednesday and in Japan on Friday, both expected to slow down. As for the central banks, after the week of the Fed and the ECB, the Bank of Japan will express its opinion on Tuesday; if expectations are for an unchanged monetary policy, operators will scrutinize with particular attention any restrictive indications for 2024. The ECB conference on fiscal policy begins which will see the intervention of both the chief economist Lane and Schnabel, while in the next few days no other speeches from bankers including the Fed will be missing, including Bostic who will report on the economic outlook tomorrow.
The euro is close to 1.1 dollars, oil and gas are rising
On the currency market, the weakness of the greenback continues, with the euro touching the 1.1 dollar threshold and trading at 1.0928 dollars (from 1.0908 at the close on Friday), while the euro/yen ratio is worth 155.57 (from 154.705 at Friday’s closing). The price of oil is rising, with the January future on the WTI at 71.95 dollars a barrel (+0.73%) and the February Brent rising by 0.93% to 77.27 dollars. The price of natural gas on the TTF platform in Amsterdam fell by 1.02% to 32.85 euros per megawatt hour.
Tokyo drops while waiting for the BoJ
The Tokyo stock market closed lower, after investors pressed the brakes ahead of the Bank of Japan’s monetary decision tomorrow, from which they await the slightest sign of future normalization. The flagship Nikkei index lost 0.64%, to close at 32,758.98 points, and the Topix index lost 0.66%, to 2,316.86 points. The Hong Kong stock market was down more than 1% at around 7am GMT, still plagued by concerns over China’s economic recovery. The BoJ has sent mixed signals to the market in recent weeks. The vast majority of economists expect a monetary status quo because the BoJ seems to want to wait to see whether wage increases will continue next year, before very gradually normalizing monetary policy.
Ai SenseTime group crashes in Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, SenseTime, a company active in artificial intelligence technologies, suffered its biggest collapse in more than a year after the surprise death of its co-founder frightened investors already grappling with the consequences of slowing growth and US sanctions. The stock fell 18%, its biggest loss since July 2022. SenseTime said co-founder and major shareholder Tang Xiao’ou died on Friday following an illness. Born in 1968, Tang Xiao’ou, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a professor in Hong Kong, was considered a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence in China, helping to create one of the national leaders in computer vision.
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Stefania Arcudi
Radiocor editor
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2023-12-18 08:03:22
#Bag #Europe #handbrake #Eyes #central #banks
