The Brussels Stock Exchange is waiting for the Fed

(ABM FN) The Brussels Stock Exchange is taking it easy on Tuesday, with a small loss, awaiting the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision on Wednesday evening.

The Bel20 index fell by 0.1 percent to 3,887 points at 11 a.m. on Tuesday.

The Federal Open Market Committee will begin its two-day policy meeting later today, culminating with an interest rate decision after hours on Wednesday evening. The US central bank is expected to leave interest rates unchanged.

Simon Wiersma, chief investment officer at ING, said he did not see continued rise in US interest rates as a major problem, “as long as volatility in the interest rate market does not increase and the US economy remains strong.”

“Furthermore, a potential interest rate cut from the Fed later this year could serve as a catalyst to shift the $6 trillion currently ‘sat’ in money market funds,” he added.

The question remains how many interest rate cuts we can expect. In the United States, expectations fell to 36 basis points, compared to 50 basis points last week. One rate cut, in other words, as the counter stood at 7 cuts 6 months ago.

The chance of raising interest rates in September has increased again.

According to KBC, the overall calendar will be quiet for a few days in the run-up to the Fed’s interest rate decision. However, the publication of a new set of inflation forecasts for May may stir things up a bit.

EUR/USD fell to 1.0745.

The risers and the fallers

UCB took the lead on Tuesday after positive analyst reports from America. JP Morgan has withdrawn its sell recommendation for UCB and raised its price target from €70 to €150. Citi maintained its buy recommendation with a target price of 161 euros instead of 126 euros.

UCB shares managed to gain nearly 3 percent.

Kepler Cheuvreux remains the buyer for Ackermans & van Haaren and increased its price target from €178 to €197. This increase in the target price helped the holding company achieve a profit of 1.1 percent.

Moreover, there were only Argenx and Solvay in the green area.

Umicore had to give up another 2.0 percent and KBC stock fell 2.5 percent.

Bartel Puelinckx has been elected as the new CFO of KBC Group.

As the numbers came in after hours this evening, Colruyt’s share gains reached 0.4 percent. Analysts believe Colruyt has met its own expectations.

Deutsche Bank starts following Azelis with a Hold recommendation and a target price of €20.40. However, Azelis stock was 1.2% in the red.

The leader in BelMid was Deceuninck with 1.6 percent. On the other hand, Care Property lost 3.3 percent and Shurgard 2.4 percent.

Source: ABM Financial News

ABM Financial News is a resource for stock market news, video and data, both for real-time trading platforms and trading rooms and for online and offline media publications. The information in this article is not intended to provide professional investment advice or a recommendation to make particular investments.