After the Wall Street pullback, stock markets are expected to fall in Europe. The Eurostoxx 50 opens at 4,297.24 points (+0.40%), the CAC 40 at 7,366.16 points (+0.89%), the DAX 40 at 15,533.64 points (+0.18%), the FTSE 100 at 8,012.53 points (+0.18%), the SMI at 11,194.91 points (-0.69%), the AEX at 771.69 points (+0.25%), the BEL 20 at 3,915.89 points (-0.07%), the IBEX 35 at 9,327.30 points (+0.35%), the DJIA at 33,696.85 points (-1.26%), the Nasdaq at 11,855.83 points (-1.78%), the S&P 500 at ; 4,090.41 points (-1.38%), and the Nikkei 225 at 27,513.13 points (-0.66%).

As for exchange rates, the change from the close mentions that in New York, EUR/USD is at 1.0638 (-0.32%), EUR/JPY at 143.30 (+0.25%), and USD/JPY at 134.71 (+0.57%).

After experiencing a “significant outflow” of its customers in the fourth quarter, industrial minerals producer Imerys published results that were below analysts' expectations for 2022 on Thursday evening. After achieving its objectives in 2022, call center manager Teleperformance announced that it expects “continued high organic growth” and a further increase in its margin in 2023. For its part, after seeing its “net bookings”, the equivalent of turnover, fall in the third quarter, the video game publisher Ubisoft confirmed its financial objectives for the year ending at the end of March.

With hope that central banks will soon cut interest rates fading, European equity markets look set to fall at the opening on Friday.

IG broker data mentions that around 7:40am, the CAC 40 futures contract lost 50.9 points, or 0.7%. While the DAX 40 contract dropped 108.5 points, or 0.7%, the FTSE 100 contract dropped 21.8 points, or 0.3%.

After the announcement of a larger-than-expected increase in US wholesale prices, which revived fears of tighter monetary policy, the New York Stock Exchange ended in a marked fall on Thursday. With regard to the need to continue the fight against inflation, the market has also reacted to new statements by American central bankers. Yesterday, the presidents of the Federal Reserve (Fed) in Cleveland and Saint Louis, Loretta Mester and James Bullard, said they would have preferred a more sustained rate hike of 50 basis points instead of 25 at the beginning of the month. For Barings, “it is certainly possible that inflation will remain stuck above 4% at the end of the year.”

Major Asian indices are losing ground on Friday. The Hang Seng on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange fell 0.9%, the Nikkei Index closed 0.7% lower in Tokyo and the Shanghai Composite fell 0.5% at the end of the session.

After the producer price index rose more than expected last month in the United States, Treasury bond yields rose overall on Thursday. Oanda says that “producer price data and the Fed's restrictive rhetoric have helped propel the 10-year Treasury yield to its highest level of the year.” According to Oanda, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester helped push yields higher after declaring that she was justified in continuing rate hikes of 50 basis points at the last meeting of the Fed's monetary policy committee and that nothing forced the US central bank to make do with increases of 25 basis points. The 2-year US Treasury rate rose 2 basis points to 4.685%, and the 10-year bond rate rose 3 basis points to 3.891% around 7:30am.

Like the greenback, the euro fell against the dollar on Friday morning but appreciated against the yen, with the dollar benefiting from the prospect of a further tightening of the Fed's monetary policy. According to HSBC Global Research, the increase in the greenback following the release of good economic indicators in the United States will not last long. For the financial intermediary, while these data have led to an upward revision of the Fed's interest rate expectations, they also allay concerns about a slowdown in global growth, which is favourable to risk appetite.

Oil futures are retreating. For CMC Markets, risk appetite is waning after Wall Street closed late last night. According to Sevens Report, crude prices are fluctuating between support just above 70 dollars and resistance just over 80 dollars, while the market remains supported by the fall of 500,000 barrels per day in Russian production starting in March and by the prospect of increased demand from China.

While the April North Sea Brent contract lost 97 cents to $84.17 per barrel around 7:20 a.m., the March contract for light sweet crude (WTI) traded on Nymex dropped $1.01 to $77.48 per barrel.