Bel20 is expected to start much lower

(ABM FN) The Brussels Stock Exchange is preparing for a sharply lower open on Friday. Euro Stoxx futures pointed to a loss of more than one and a half percent an hour before the stock bell.

On Thursday, Bel20 was still 0.2 percent higher at 4,218.48 points, after a Chinese rate cut and easing US interest rate pressure gave investors some color again. The US 10-year bond yield is trading at 1.78 percent this morning, after peaking at 1.90 percent earlier this week.

Wall Street also had a fast open Thursday afternoon, supporting European stocks, but as is often the case in a still nascent year of stocks, US sentiment turned negative during the trading day, with a 1.1 loss at the closing bell. Boards for the main index S&P 500. The Nasdaq Technology Exchange fell faster, by 1.3 percent.

“The market has been sending mixed signals a few times over the past few weeks, but now it looks like the broader market is starting to correct,” said Scott Riddler, trader at T3 Live.

Due to Thursday’s drop, the Nasdaq is now trading in correction territory, having fallen more than 10 percent from its November record. Higher interest rates are putting additional pressure on technology stocks as future earnings look less attractive.

Market analyst Naim Aslam of AvaTrade predicts that investors will wait for the stock markets to correct another 5 percent more before starting to look for trades. Aslam says this decline is unimaginable if the quarterly earnings season continues to frustrate.

On Thursday after trading closed on Wall Street, investors were forced to take a bitter pill in this regard. Streaming service Netflix, one of Wall Street’s success stories with a market capitalization of more than $200 billion, is disappointed with its forecast of 2.5 million new subscribers in the current quarter. Analysts expected an average of 5.8 million new subscribers for the first quarter. Netflix now has approximately 222 million subscribers worldwide.

Higher-than-expected earnings per share in the past quarter were pushed aside by an unexpected slowdown in subscriber growth from investors, and shares fell as much as 20 percent in after-hours e-commerce. The price reaction had an impact on US index futures this morning pointing to a lower open on Wall Street this afternoon.

Bitcoin is also down this morning with a drop of nearly 8 percent to $38,893. This is well below the $40,000 that many investors saw as a mainstay for the cryptocurrency.

Asian stocks took a step back this morning after the previous day’s hoarseness vote, spurred by China’s cut in interest rates. The Chinese and Japanese stock exchanges lost up to one percent. Sydney’s main index, loaded with money and commodity stocks, fell 2.3 per cent.

US oil futures left a mark Thursday evening in New York at $86.90 a barrel. In Asian trading, the future is traded up to 1 percent.

The company calendar is usually almost empty on Fridays. On the macroeconomic front, attention is focused on the US Leading Indicators Index and the Eurozone Preliminary Consumer Confidence in January.

company news

UCB again achieved positive results with bimekizumab, this time with a full-fledged Phase 3 BE study for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis. The UCB plans to file an application for bimekizumab to treat psoriatic arthritis with regulators in the United States and Europe in the third quarter of this year.

Agfa-Gevaert has raised prices for PCB Phototooling and Medical Products. The price increases are attributable to higher transportation costs as well as higher raw material prices.

Econocom has appointed Laurent Roudil as General Manager and CEO and Angel Benguegui as Deputy General Manager.

Close positions on Wall Street

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 1.1 percent on Thursday at 4,482.73 points, the Dow Jones index lost 0.9 percent to 34,715.39 points, and the Nasdaq closed 1.3 percent lower at 14,154.02 points.

Pron: ABM Financial News

From Beursplein 5, Editors ABM Financial News Keep a close eye on developments on the stock exchanges, and the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in particular. The information in this column is not intended as professional investment advice or as a recommendation to make certain investments.