PARIS / LONDON (dpa-AFX) – Europe’s stock markets hardly changed on Wednesday. On light trading, they fared relatively well against dovish Wall Street guidance. Around noon, the eurozone benchmark index EuroStoxx 50 (EURO STOXX 50) was almost unchanged at 3831.13 points. The French CAC 40 was also on the spot with 6552.23 points. Things looked better in Great Britain. The UK’s FTSE 100 climbed 0.82 percent to 7533.98 points after the holiday break, thanks to strength in oil and commodity stocks.
For 2022, the EuroStoxx is heading for a loss of almost eleven percent, although it has recovered by around 18 percent since the low at the end of September. In view of the Ukraine war, the energy price crisis and rising interest rates, it is threatened with the weakest year on the stock market since 2018. Some improvement is in sight in 2023. However, according to data from the Bloomberg news agency, market strategists from various companies only believe the index is capable of a modest increase.
In the thin Wednesday trading, the changes remained mostly manageable. Nasdaq weakness weighed on technology stocks somewhat. The auto sector was also weaker. Both are currently under the spell of Tesla, which according to reports in the past few days is temporarily cutting production in China.
On the other hand, oil and commodity stocks were among the winners. Russia’s reaction to the crude oil price cap has raised concerns about supply shortages, said Sophie Lund-Yates, an analyst at investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown. Russia’s President Wladimir Putin had by decree banned the sale of oil to countries that had decided on a price cap on the raw material. “Supplies of Russian oil and oil products to foreign companies and individuals are prohibited if the mechanism for fixing a price cap is directly or indirectly built into these contracts,” the document reads.
Industrial conglomerate ABB (ABB (Asea Brown Boveri)), meanwhile, completed the sale of its remaining stake in the former power grids division announced in September. The remaining 19.9 percent stake in the Hitachi Energy joint venture went to the Japanese partner Hitachi. ABB expects “no material gains or losses” from the sale. However, the agreement came about earlier than expected and “on favorable terms”. Meanwhile, the stock trended little changed./mf/mis