The markets are about to end the week marked by uncertainty.
The signs of concern come above all from China and the USA, the former struggling with an economic recovery and the latter struggling with the end of record rates.
Asian stocks fluctuated and lost ground as optimism over China's rescue measures faded and investors analyzed Intel's weak results.
Traders meanwhile await key data on US inflation later in the day to gauge the outlook on Fed rates.
Yesterday, macro results further highlighted economic resilience in the global powerhouse.
Overnight on Wall Street, all three major indexes gained, with the S&P500 rising 0.53% to hit a record high of 4,894.16, snapping a six-day winning streak.
In this context, the focus of the markets today is on the performance of the 2 powers, which make the financial prospects unclear in the short to medium term.
read also European shares balanced between the highs and lows of the quarterly reports China still in the balance The Asia-Pacific markets recorded widespread declines on Friday, with the indices in the red except for the Chinese Shnaghai which closed the slight increase.
Electric vehicle shares in the region fell for a second day: Shares of Hong Kong-listed Xpeng and Li Auto fell about 4% each, while BYD lost 4.7%.
The broader Hang Seng Index fell 1.6%, while the Hang Seng Tech Index, which houses the most electric vehicles, lost 3.5%.
The crash follows the events of Tesla.
Shares of Musk's giant fell 12% in US trading on Thursday after the electric vehicle giant missed earnings expectations and warned of a slowdown in 2024, triggering a sell-off in Asian electric vehicle companies.
read also Musk against China.
Why is Beijing threatening Tesla? Overall, China remains in the spotlight.
The wave of political support from Beijing has partly restored fragile investor confidence and limited the stock sell-off of recent weeks.
Seeking to shore up its fragile economic recovery, China's central bank announced a deep cut to bank reserves on Wednesday, in a move that will inject about $140 billion of liquidity into the banking system.
US resilience? Investors' attention today is on the release of the US personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index, with expectations for the so-called core PCE price index – the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation – rising by 3%.
% every year.
Data on Thursday, meanwhile, showed the U.S.
economy grew faster than expected in the fourth quarter amid strong consumer spending, dismissing forecasts of a recession in the world's largest economy.
read also Why a Trump victory threatens European stocks (Goldman Sachs) The S&P 500 closed near 4,900 and US 10-year yields fell.
Swap contracts continued to fully price in the Fed's interest rate cut in May, while increasing bets on total cuts this year to around 140 basis points.
With the U.S.
stock market at record highs, the question many investors are asking right now is how much firepower is left in the stock rally that began last year.
Comparing Energy Production: Nuclear Plants vs.Solar Photovoltaic Systems Comparing the energy production of a nuclear… Read More
```html Welcome to the Lotto and Superenalotto Draws We are here again for our regular… Read More
```html The Impact of Fed Rate Cuts on Stock Markets The Federal Reserve's decision to… Read More