Paris (awp/afp) – European stock indices moved in a mixed order on Friday, with investors being cautious before the publication of inflation data in the United States and the euro zone, and before knowing the outcome of the first round of French legislative elections.
In Europe at around 09:20, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange gained 0.30% and London 0.41%. The Paris Stock Exchange was finally anchored in the red (-0.39%) after a slightly higher opening. As for the Swiss Stock Exchange, it saw its flagship SMI index also hesitate, the latter gaining 0.09% shortly before 10:00, after going into the red following a green start to the session.
“Large movements are possible in both directions in the coming days. Depending on what happens in terms of inflation or in the new French elections on Sunday,” comments Andreas Lipkow, independent analyst. “Many investors should postpone their commitments until next week and avoid taking too much risk before the decisive deadlines,” he continued.
The first round “will allow us to get an idea of the possible outcomes,” commented Deutsche Bank analysts. Thursday evening, the situation seemed frozen in the polls, which gave the National Rally (extreme right) a clear favorite with 36% of voting intentions, ahead of the left-wing New Popular Front alliance which grabbed half a point at 29%, according to the daily Ifop-Fiducial barometer for LCI, Le Figaro and Sud Radio.
Under the banner “Together for the Republic”, the Macronist camp is still behind at 21%, while the traditional right (The Republicans) is relegated to 6.5%. In this context, “French assets continued to lose ground, with the Franco-German 10-year spread closing on Thursday above the 80 basis point mark for the first time since 2012,” the analysts underlined. .
Around 9:15 a.m., France’s 10-year borrowing rate continued to increase slightly, to 3.27%, the German rate at the same maturity reached 2.43%. However, “a higher rate gap means a lesser appetite for the euro,” explains Ipek Ozkardeskaya, analyst at Swissquote Bank.
On the foreign exchange market, the single European currency fell slightly by 0.05% against the greenback, to 1.0698 dollars.
On the agenda for the session, investors will digest inflation indicators for the month of June for France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
But it is above all the American PCE price index for May, which must be published before the opening of the New York Stock Exchange, which is the most anticipated. The inflation indicator most closely followed by the American central bank (Fed), it is expected to be stable over one month, after having increased by 0.3% in April.
In Asia, on the Chinese stock exchanges, Hong Kong gained 0.20% in recent trading, Shenzhen gained 0.73%, while Shanghai was stable (-0.01%).
In Japan, the Tokyo Stock Exchange gained 0.61%, driven by the fall of the yen which reached a new low against the dollar since 1986, an advantageous trend for Japanese export stocks and which also makes the local stock market attractive. for foreign investors.
At around 9:15 a.m., the yen fell 0.14% against the dollar, to 161.00 yen.
SoftBank to buy in AI
SoftBank Group (+2.52%) would be ready to invest between 10 and 20 million dollars in Perplexity AI, an American start-up in generative artificial intelligence, according to information from the Bloomberg agency. If the amount of this investment is symbolic, it would nevertheless value Perplexity at 3 billion dollars and illustrates the desire of the CEO of SoftBank Group, Masayoshi Son, to invest more and more in the AI sector, full of opportunities but also risks.
SoftBank Group also raised the equivalent of 1.8 million euros on Friday via a bond issue in euros and dollars, its first operation of this kind in foreign currencies since 2021.
Black gold on the rise
Oil prices are trending upwards at 09:10: the price of a barrel of North Sea Brent, for delivery in August, gained 0.65% to $86.95. Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), for delivery in the same month, rose 0.77% to $82.37.
Bitcoin gained 0.19% to $61,535.
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