Paris (awp/afp) – World stock markets are moving cautiously on Monday, before the last monetary policy meeting of the American Federal Reserve of the year is held this week.
Around 09:00 GMT, the CAC 40 lost 0.63%, Frankfurt 0.23% and London 0.16%.
Investors are “awaiting the Fed meeting” on Wednesday, summarizes John Plassard, investment specialist for Mirabaud.
The latter “will have a lot of work to do to convince (them) that an aggressive rate cut is necessary after the publication of the latest statistics on inflation in the United States,” he adds.
According to the majority of observers, the institution should announce a further reduction in its rates of a quarter of a percentage point for this last meeting of the year.
But several data published last week call for caution, as inflation and producer prices accelerated in the United States in November.
The markets will therefore be attentive to the speech of Jerome Powell, the president of the institution. “What the Fed announces at the next meetings will probably be more important than this week’s cut,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya of Swissquote Bank.
“The uncertainties surrounding what the effects of Trump’s first economic policy decisions will be on activity and inflation (…) complicate the outlook,” adds Véronique Riches-Flores, economist at RichesFlores Research.
Investors also have their eyes on the publication, throughout the morning, of PMI activity indices for the countries of the euro zone.
According to preliminary data, France experienced its fourth consecutive decline in private sector activity in December.
Bad news, as the political situation in the country, still without a 2025 budget, remains a concern for the markets, despite the appointment of François Bayrou as Prime Minister on Friday.
The Moody’s agency thus downgraded the French sovereign rating overnight from Friday to Saturday, in view of the “political fragmentation more likely to prevent significant budgetary consolidation” of the country.
In this context, the ten-year interest rate on French bonds rose on Monday, reaching 3.06%, compared to 3.04 on Friday at the close. The gap with the German benchmark rate stood at 0.80 points, compared to 0.78.
In Germany, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz faces the vote of confidence of deputies on Monday, a month after the explosion of his coalition, the final step to lead to the legislative elections in February which are already mobilizing the country.
Another important meeting this week: the meeting of the Bank of Japan expected on Thursday, a growing number of economists now believing that the central bank will procrastinate and wait until January to carry out further tightening.
In this context, the Tokyo Stock Exchange remained stable on Monday (-0.03%).
Elsewhere in Asia, Chinese stock markets turned red after the publication of indicators showing slowed growth in retail sales in the country in November, a sign of still sluggish consumption.
Hong Kong perdu 0.88%, Shanghai 0.16% and Shenzhen 1.30%.
Bitcoin still higher
Bitcoin continues its rise in recent weeks: after briefly exceeding the $106,000 level for the first time on Monday morning, it was trading around 8:40 a.m. GMT at $104,808.
On the exchange side, the dollar fell by 0.16% against the single European currency, to 10,517 dollars per euro.
Oil prices were in decline: a barrel of WTI depreciated by 0.40% to $71.00, and that of Brent from the North Sea lost 0.26% to $74.29.
Vivendi split into four
The split of Vivendi, a French media and publishing giant, becomes effective Monday with the listing of three new entities on the stock exchange in London, Amsterdam and Paris, still under the control of billionaire Vincent Bolloré.
Louis Hachette Group, listed on the Euronext Growth market in Paris, and Havas, listed in Amsterdam, rose respectively around 9:00 GMT by 27.68% and 7.82% compared to their initial quotation.
Canal+, introduced in London, fell by 12.76%.
The Vivendi holding company, emptied of most of its assets, jumped 37.12% in Paris.
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