The negative tone prevails in the European stock markets this Monday after a start to the year in which increases have been the general trend. He Ibex The week begins with decreases close to 0.7% that lead it to lose 9,200 points. Within the selective, Fluidra, ArcelorMittal and Colonial are the most penalized with decreases of more than 2%. Few escape falls. Among them, the banks do it, with Sabadell, CaixaBank and Bankinter rising more than 1%.
The rest of the indices of the Old Continent, the Cac of Paris yielded 1.4% while the German Dax Xetra and the London Ftse respectively cut 0.97% and 0.77%. By sectors, those that have been doing the best this month and a few days in 2023 are the ones that are performing the worst today, and vice versa. In the Stoxx 600, the health sector advances in the session around 0.5%; in the year, it is the second worst performer, totaling 0.6%.
From Link Securities, the entity’s experts summarize what has happened in recent days and what to expect next. Last week attention was practically monopolized by central banks. The markets interpreted that the main European and United States monetary authorities were ready to end their adjustment process and that the long-awaited soft landing of the developed economies was increasingly feasible.
“However, this ideal scenario that investors had been discounting came up with a setback on Friday: the non-agricultural employment data published in the US, corresponding to the month of January, surprisingly showed that the US labor market maintains great strength and that, so far, the restrictive monetary policy of the Federal Reserve (Fed) is not achieving the objective of easing it, with the unemployment rate reaching its lowest level in 54 years in that month. The reaction of the US equity and fixed income markets to the publication of these figures was very negative, since the data does not add up with a Fed ending its rate hike process imminently.“, comments analyst Juan José Fernández-Figares.
These days, the market’s attention will predictably be more on the evolution of business results than on the few relevant macro references that are presented. Today new data has been released in the eurozone. Consumption in the month of December has slightly disappointed analysts by falling 2.7% in monthly terms compared to the 2.5% decrease that was expected. By contrast, the Sentix investor sentiment index has surprised in a good way. Although still negative, at -8 integers, it is better versus the -13.5 estimate and -17.5 before.
In addition, investors will be awaiting the German CPI for January, which will be released on Thursday, the publication of which we recall has been delayed and is expected to rebound (8.9%e vs 8.6%). Weakness is expected in industrial productions in Germany , Spain and the United Kingdom that will be known throughout the week.
“In the current context, our market vision continues to be prudent, especially seeing the continuation of the rebound in both equities and fixed income given the expectation of a prompt pivot in the monetary policies of the central banks that we do not share”, they explain from Rent 4.
In the commodity market, the sanctions on Russian crude oil derivatives came into effect this weekend, although it is not estimated that they will result in strong price distortions.
Diesel futures contracts in Europe fall in price today. The ton is paid at about 802 dollars when on Friday it cost 819 dollars. The amount is 47% less than the more than $1,500 that a ton cost in mid-March 2022.
Brent is trading today at $80.46 per barrel, representing a rise of 0.6%.