Next week, investors will entirely focus on the new quarterly earnings season. This started last week in the United States, where significant banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citi opened the books, as did airlines Delta Air Lines and American Air Lines.
On the macroeconomic front, investors are particularly looking forward to data on economic growth in China and the eurozone. Chinese retail sales will also be closely monitored because they say a lot about the recovery of the Asian superpower’s economy after the long series of self-imposed corona lockdowns that slowed the economy sharply. There will also be final figures on European inflation in March.
This week, the European stock markets closed with a slight gain. The AEX index went 0.1 percent higher into the weekend at 761.40 points. The MidKap rose 0.8 percent to 947.92 points. The main indicators in Paris, London and Frankfurt rose by 0.5 percent.
Interest rate fears returned on Wall Street on Friday. The well-known Dow Jones index fell 0.4 percent to 33,886.47 points. The broad-based S&P 500 lost 0.2 percent to 4137.64 points. Tech exchange Nasdaq fell 0.4 percent and closed at 12,123.46 points.
