(Paris) Global financial markets were struggling on Friday, amid worries about the banking sector after difficulties reported by a US banking player.
The European and Asian stock markets were won by the small wave of panic caused by the Silicon Valley Bank, a Californian establishment close to the technology sector.
Paris fell by 1.04%, London by 1.62%, Frankfurt by 1.19% and Milan by 1.43% around 7:30 a.m. (Eastern time).
The Tokyo Stock Exchange lost 1.67%, Shanghai 1.40% and Hong Kong fell 3.04%, penalized by the disappointing results fell from the Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com.
After steep declines on Thursday, all three Wall Street indices are heading for a fairly flat open according to their futures.
SVB Financial Group on Wednesday announced a major capital raise and the hasty sale of assets, which resulted in an estimated loss of $1.8 billion.
SVB is thus seeking to increase its liquidity to strengthen its balance sheet, weakened by withdrawals from customers, themselves in difficulty by the rise in interest rates.
After having unscrewed by more than 60% on Thursday, the title of the SVB group could still fall by 40% on Friday according to electronic exchanges preceding the opening.
“SVB does not represent the American banking sector more broadly, although the fall in its action has affected the morale” of the markets, comments Neil Wilson, analyst at Finalto.
Investor fears were heightened by the fact that the parent company of another bank, Silvergate Bank, which is closely linked to cryptoassets, announced on Wednesday that the establishment was going into liquidation.
“We had zero rates for several years and the banks operated in a certain way,” commented Jens Nordvig of Exante Data and Market Reader. “Some banks are going to have difficulties in the face of a totally different environment.”
Stephen Innes, analyst at SPI Asset Management, however, wants to be reassuring and explains that “the risk of contagion from small to large banks is low” given the current regulations.
Securities of banking groups fell on various stock exchanges.
Societe Generale fell by 4.79% in Paris, Deutsche Bank by 7.09% and Commerzbank by 3.20% in Frankfurt, Unicredit by 3.12% in Milan, Barclays by 3.65% and HSBC by 4.56% in London around 7:25 a.m. (Eastern time).
In Tokyo, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (-6.12%) and Nomura Holdings (-3.57%) were penalized.
Conversely, less risky assets were highly sought after. Gold surged. Over two days it shows an increase of 1.19% to 1835.26 dollars an ounce.
Bond yields, which move inversely to bond prices, fell, also a sign of a rush by investors to safe-haven assets. The interest rate of the German 10-year debt was worth 2.53% against 2.64% at the close of the previous day. US rates also fell on Thursday.
Bitcoin was worth $19,810, falling by more than 7% since Thursday evening and falling back below $20,000 for the first time since January.
American employment in the sights
Investors are also nervous ahead of the release of the February US jobs report, the data of which will be scrutinized by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) and could be decisive in deciding the scale of the next rate hike in the economy. ‘institution.
“A surprise on the upside” in the number of job creations “could be bad news for the market, as it would encourage the Fed to proceed with a more aggressive hike in its interest rates in March”, warns Victoria Scholar, Chief Investment Officer of Interactive Investor.
On the side of currencies and oil
On the foreign exchange market, the yen retreated against the main other currencies after the maintenance of the ultra-accommodating monetary policy of the Bank of Japan (BoJ), at the end of the last meeting chaired by its outgoing governor Haruhiko Kuroda.
It lost 0.50% to 136.82 yen per dollar.
The euro gained 0.05% to 1.0587 dollars for one euro.
Oil prices fell around 7:20 a.m. (Eastern time), a barrel of American WTI was worth 75.12 dollars (-0.79%) and a barrel of Brent from the North Sea (-0.81% ) was trading at $80.94.
