Brussels will probably start the trading week in a wait-and-see manner

(ABM FN) The Brussels stock exchange is expected to have a neutral opening on Monday. Futures on the Euro Stoxx 50 index were fractionally in the green about an hour before the stock market bell.

The Bel20 ended positively on Friday, with a closing score well above 4,000 points. At a close of 4,013.33 points, the star index rose 0.7 percent. On a weekly basis, the gain was more than 2.5 percent.

According to analyst Corné van Zeijl of Cardano, the stock market is enjoying “a nice tailwind”, thanks to better-than-expected corporate figures and falling interest rates. In addition, the market is counting on the European Central Bank to lower interest rates sooner than the Federal Reserve, which should benefit economic growth, according to Van Zeijl.

“The fact that there is still a lot of skepticism among many investors about the sustainability of the rally, plus the relatively large amount of cash that is still being held, reinforces our expectation that the rally will continue for a while,” added investment manager Simon Wiersma of ING.

“Positive earnings growth revisions currently outweigh doubts about the Fed’s interest rate policy,” Wiersma said.

Meanwhile, the weak US jobs report has visibly reassured investors about the chances of further rate cuts this year, although several Fed officials again tempered expectations last week.

But one swallow does not make a summer, warned Bernard Keppenne, chief economist at CBC Banque, who emphasized that the US job market is still too tight to hope for a quick interest rate cut.

Wall Street entered the weekend with modest gains on Friday. The Dow Jones index rose for the eighth consecutive trading day, while the Nasdaq tech exchange closed almost flat.

The Asian stock markets slowed down this morning. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was the positive exception this morning with a price gain of about half a percent, and the index has now been on an impressive rise for more than three weeks. Seoul, Tokyo and Sydney, on the other hand, lost up to half a percent.

This weekend it was announced that Chinese consumer prices rose by 0.3 percent year on year in April, which exceeded expectations of an increase of 0.2 percent. Producer prices actually fell by 2.5 percent, while a decline of 2.3 percent was expected. Producer prices in China have now been under pressure for nineteen months in a row.

At $78.26 per barrel on Friday, WTI oil prices rose slightly on a weekly basis last week. Among other things, the weekly supplies from the US, which showed a decline in oil inventories, provided some support for the oil price. In addition, tensions rose again in the Middle East after Israel rejected a ceasefire deal with Hamas and entered the Rafah border area.

This morning, oil futures were 0.2 percent lower in Asian trade.

The macroeconomic agenda is traditionally sparsely filled on Mondays, while the earnings season is at its peak.

A lot of attention will be paid on Wednesday to the inflation figures from the US for the month of April. The expectation is that inflation has not cooled down enough to give the Fed confidence that inflation will return to 2.0 percent sustainably.

US producer prices appear a day earlier and the two data sets together tell more about the development of inflation in the US, market analysts from CMC Markets said.

“Both the PPI and CPI reports are likely to have a major impact on rates and the dollar,” according to CMC.

Company news

Sofina is launching a share buyback program to cover the stock option plans for employees. The holding company wants to buy back its own shares for a maximum of 23.4 million euros.

Hyloris Pharmaceuticals needs more time to complete the annual report and the annual meeting is therefore postponed.

Deceuninck starts a new share buyback program to cover share purchase and warrant plans of management and employees for a maximum amount of almost 2.4 million euros.

Wall Street closing positions

The S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent to 5,222.68 points on Friday, the Dow Jones index gained 0.3 percent to 39,512.84 points and the Nasdaq closed almost flat at 16,340.87 points.

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.