(ABM FN) The Brussels stock exchange ended higher on Friday. At a close of 3,913.37 points, the Bel20 rose 0.5 percent towards the weekend. On a weekly basis, the star index gained around one percent.
The trading day was dominated by the American jobs report. There was also plenty of attention for the current earnings season. Heavyweight Apple sold fewer iPhones, but the results were better than expected. The tech giant also announced a new purchasing program of no less than 110 billion dollars.
The US jobs report for April showed job growth of 175,000, an unemployment rate of 3.9 percent and annual wage growth of also 3.9 percent annually. The market expected job growth of 240,000, a stable unemployment rate of 3.8 percent and wage growth of 4.0 percent.
“The interest rate markets understandably continued with the post-FOMC momentum,” said KBC’s market room, referring to the further decline in bond yields. The US ten-year yield fell to 4.53 percent on Friday after the jobs report, while the two-year Treasury yield fell to 4.82 percent. Earlier this week, short-term interest rates were still around 5.00 percent.
According to KBC, a first interest rate cut in September is now as good as priced in and a “second step is almost fully discounted for December. Before Wednesday’s Fed communication, investors only saw a 75 percent chance of a first interest rate cut in November,” KBC said.
Still, Fed Governor Michelle Bowman warned on Friday that as far as she is concerned, an interest rate increase is not off the table as long as inflation in the US remains high. Earlier this week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell seemed to hint at the interest rate decision that the market need not fear an increase.
The chance of an interest rate cut in June was less than 10 percent on Thursday. On Friday, that chance rose to 14 percent. The chance of a cut in July is now estimated at 36 percent and for September the chance is now 67 percent, according to CME’s FedWatch Tool.
On a macroeconomic level, further attention was paid to purchasing data from the United Kingdom and the United States on Friday. For example, the British services sector grew slightly faster in April than a provisional estimate showed, with an index reading of 55.0.
In the US the picture was mixed. S&P Global’s purchasing managers index showed a slight growth slowdown for April to 51.3, while ISM purchasing data pointed to an unexpected contraction in the American services sector. That index stood at 49.4 in April.
The euro/dollar was 0.5 percent higher at 1.0777 after the jobs report. Oil prices fell further and appear to have lost around 6 percent on a weekly basis.
Risers and fallers
Within the main index, Umicore, which lost 4.5 percent yesterday, rebounded 6.5 percent for no apparent reason and against a backdrop of heavy trading volumes.
Syensqo won 4.3 percent, while Solvay lost 1.2 percent. Galapagos lost 1.3 percent and ended up at the bottom of the star index. Galapagos’ quarterly figures were hardly surprising.
GBL rose 1.9 percent as the first quarter results published last night were in line with expectations, according to ING.
Jefferies sees a slowdown in growth at Shurgard and maintains its Underperform recommendation on the stock, which fell 1.2 percent after opening the books on Friday.
If the operational momentum can be maintained, ING sees upside potential for Ontex shares for the first time in a long time. The bank therefore maintained its buy recommendation for the share on Friday, which still had to lose 2.5 percent after the quarterly figures.
Bpost lost 5.1 percent in the Belmid, although ING analyst Marc Zwartsenburg was satisfied with the quarterly report. Aperam was also under pressure after the quarterly figures. The stock fell 4.6 percent.
Among the small caps, Nyxoah rose 2.4 percent and Onward Medical and Sequana Medical even gained 2.5 and 2.8 percent. Ekopak fell 1.7 percent.
Unifiedpost announced on Friday that it has exercised 100,000 so-called Key Man and 30,750 Plan de Warrants 2015 subscription rights. As a result, 1,307,500 ordinary shares were issued for a total amount of more than 2.4 million euros. The share rose 0.3 percent.
Wall Street
Around the close in Brussels, the American stock markets were trading 1.0 to 2.0 percent higher.
Source: ABM Financial News
ABM Financial News is a supplier of stock market news, video and data, both for real-time trading platforms and dealing rooms and for online and offline media publications. The information in this article is not intended as professional investment advice or as a recommendation to make certain investments.
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