European markets closed on a positive note on Wednesday amid a fresh barrage of corporate results on both sides of the Atlantic and shortly before the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions.
On the board, the pan-European Europe 600 index rose 0.5% to close at 428.12 points.
Germany’s DAX rose 0.5% to 13,166.38, France’s CAC 40 gained 0.75% to 6,257.94, while Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.6% to 7,348.23.
In the region, Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 1.5%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 gained 0.7%.
Investors expect the US central bank to raise interest rates by another 75 basis points today, continuing its aggressive rate hikes to tame inflation.
Aggressive monetary policy tightening by the US central bank and other major central banks has fueled concerns about the strength of global growth.
These concerns deepened on Tuesday, after revision in hand, on the part of the International Monetary Fundof the forecasts for global growth, both for 2022 and for 2023, with the Fund speaking of “a dark and uncertain outlook”.
The day’s corporate results include those of Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Daimler, Danone, Carrefour and Airbus. On the other side of the Atlantic, the tech giants Alphabet and Microsoft announced their quarterly statements last night, while today other big names in the American economy followed, such as Boeing, Visa, Kraft Heinz and Texas Instruments.
On the macroeconomic front, consumer confidence in Germany is expected to fall to a record low in August, as fears of dwindling natural gas supplies and pressure on supply chains, combined with the war in Ukraine, create an entirely volatile landscape.
The index of the GFK Institute shortly before its change was at -30.6 points, a historic low compared to the previous, also negative record of -27.7 points at the beginning of July.
Source: Capital
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