Frankfurt fell by 0.45%, Paris by 0.23% and Milan by 0.06%, while London rose by 0.63%. In Zurich, the SMI ended up 0.19%.
Global stock markets fell on Monday, as several economic indicators reminded investors of the weak momentum in activity in the world’s major economic regions.
Wall Street was down: the Nasdaq dropped 0.72%, the S&P500 0.23% and the Dow Jones was in balance around 3:50 p.m. GMT.
In Europe, Frankfurt fell by 0.45%, Paris by 0.23% and Milan by 0.06%, while London took 0.63%. In Zurich, the SMI ended up 0.19%.
Compared to recent weeks, “it seems that the main subject has moved from inflation and the rise in rates to the fear of a recession,” said Vincent Manuel, investment director at Indosuez Wealth Management.
“Before, stocks went down and bond rates went up. There, the actions fall but the rates too”, he remarks.
In Europe, where the interest on 10-year bonds in countries had risen sharply during the day, they finally ended in a slight decline.
The economic picture is gloomy in the three major regions of the world, although the reasons behind the slowdown are different.
Weighed down by sanitary confinements, China saw its consumption plunge, with retail sales down 11.1% over one year in April, and its industrial production weakening (-2.9% over one year).
In Europe, inflation, accelerated by the war in Ukraine, also prompted the European Commission to drastically reduce its growth forecasts for the European economy.
Another inflationary factor, the price of wheat, already at its highest since the war in Ukraine, broke a new record on Monday at the opening on the European market, at 435 euros per tonne, after India decided to ban exports of the cereal, in the face of a drop in its production.
To complete the bleak picture, manufacturing activity in the New York area contracted sharply in May, for only the third time since the economic recovery in the summer of 2020. Analysts expected a slowdown, but not a pullback. .
Twitter continues its slide
The title of Twitter fell 5.53% to 38.47 dollars falling below the level where it was when Elon Musk revealed that he had acquired a stake in early April.
The boss of Tesla has since made an offer at 54.20 dollars, valuing the group some 44 billion dollars, before procrastinating.
Tesla also lost 4.12%, and has fallen more than a third of its value since Elon Musk’s first participation in Twitter.
Renault and McDonald’s leave Russia
Cornered by the sanctions hitting Russia, the French car manufacturer Renault (-0.04%), leader in the country with the Lada brand which it had recovered, sold its assets to the Russian State, the first major nationalization. since the offensive against Ukraine.
The American fast food giant McDonald’s (-0.76%), present in Russia for more than 30 years, has announced that it will definitively withdraw from the country and sell all its activities.
Bitcoin still below $30,000
After a slight rebound, bitcoin fell 4.83% to 29,520 dollars around 3:50 p.m. GMT, weighed down by investor risk aversion which pushed the first cryptocurrency, and the entire sector as a whole, to a lowest since the end of 2020 on Thursday. .
On the side of oil and the euro
Oil prices rose after a falling start to the session: around 3:30 p.m. GMT, a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in July took 0.74% to 112.37 dollars.
A barrel of US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in June rose 1.31% to 111.90 dollars.
The euro remained stable at $1.0416, close to its lowest point in twenty years against the greenback (reached in early 2017 at $1.0341).