At the opening on Friday, July 29, 2022, European equity markets should be looking good. The Eurostoxx 50 opens at 3,652.20 points (+1.23%), the CAC 40 at 6,339.21 points (+1.30%), the DAX 40 at 13,282.11 points (+0.88%), the FTSE 100 at 7,345.25 points (-0.04%), the SMI at 11,129.33 points (+0.66%), the AEX at 22.38 points (+1.24%), the BEL 20 at 3,759.28 points (+0.19%), the IBEX 35 at 8,084.90 points (-0.49%), the DJIA at 32,529.63 points (+1.03%), the Nasdaq at 12,162.59 points (+1.08%), the S&P 500 at 4,072.43 points (+1.21%) and the Nikkei 225 at 27,752.95 points (-0.22%).

On the exchange side, the change from the close in New York indicates that EUR/USD is at 1.0212 (+0.14%), EUR/JPY at 136.23 (-0.49%), and USD/JPY at 133.42 (-0.63%).

There are still numerous results published on Friday. Air France-KLM, Amundi, Aperam, Arkema, BNP Paribas, Bolloré, Engie, EssilorLuxottica, Hermès, Legrand, Renault, Spie, Vinci and Wendel present their quarterly accounts today.

On Thursday evening, the media and communication group Vivendi indicated that it was studying a plan to sell all of its publishing subsidiary Editis in order to remove regulatory obstacles to its merger with the Lagardère group. The group also published higher half-year results that were generally in line with analysts' expectations.

The world leader in cosmetics L'Oréal announced on Thursday that its net profit from the group increased by 25.2% to 3.25 billion euros in the first half of the year. The group also confirmed its objective of increasing its turnover and results this year, higher than that of the global beauty market.

For its part, the ADP airport group raised its margin target for the 2022 financial year on Thursday, after publishing significantly higher results in the first half of the year.

On the macroeconomic side, France's gross domestic product (GDP) growth stood at 0.5% in the second quarter compared with the first, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee) announced on Friday, in an initial estimate. Activity thus rebounded after a fall in GDP of 0.2% over the first three months of the year.

Provisional consumer price statistics for the month of July will be released at 8:45am. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal expect inflation to slow to 0.3% over one month in July, after 0.7% in June. Over a year, inflation is expected to strengthen slightly, to 5.9% compared with 5.8% in June.

European stock markets are expected to open higher on Friday, buoyed by well-received earnings reports from Apple and Amazon, whose shares rose in post-close trading on Wall Street. At 7:40am, the CAC 40 futures contract gained 54.8 points, or 0.9%, according to data from the IG Markets broker. The DAX 40 contract increased by 81.4 points, or 0.6%, and the FTSE 100 contract increased by 23.2 points, or 0.3%.

The New York Stock Exchange finished higher on Thursday, having continued to rise the day before despite the announcement of a second consecutive quarter of contraction in the US economy, fueling fears of a recession. In the wake of another strong monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve (Fed), investors tried to assess whether the sharp slowdown in the US economy could encourage the central bank to change its plans for rate hikes.

In Asia, the major stock exchanges were trading in the red on Friday. At the end of the session, the Nikkei index on the Tokyo Stock Exchange fell 0.2%, the Shanghai Composite fell by 0.7% and the Hang Seng lost 2.3% in Hong Kong.

U.S. Treasury bond yields continued to fall on Friday morning, after falling on Thursday, in response to the news that the U.S. economy would contract in the second quarter, reviving recession fears and reinforcing the idea that the Fed could slow the pace of its rate hikes. The yield curve, which takes into account the difference between 10-year and 2-year rates, remains inverted, with the 2-year rate being higher than the 10-year rate, a situation considered to herald a recession. Around 7:20 a.m., the 10-year Treasury bond yielded around 1 basis point, at 2.662%. The 2-year bond lost nearly 4 basis points to 2.827%.

The euro appreciated against the dollar on Friday morning but lost ground against the yen, like the greenback. The dollar weakened during the Asian session, thanks to risk-taking sentiment, in part due to the rise in Wall Street futures.

Oil prices are changing hesitantly on Friday morning. WTI was penalized on Thursday by the announcement of an unexpected contraction in the American economy in the second quarter. At 7:20 a.m., the October North Sea Brent contract lost 4 cents to $101.79 per barrel, while the September contract for soft crude (WTI) listed on Nymex rose by 19 cents to $96.61 per barrel.