European equities include red in volatile week marked by Russian conflict and the Fed

The major European stock exchanges They closed in the red this Friday after a week marked by great volatility due to the tightening of the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) and the tension between Moscow and Washington over Ukraine.

In Frankfurt, the index DAX decreased by 1.32% while the CAC 40 Paris fell 0.82 percent.

In London, the index FTSE fell by 1.17% at the end of the last week of January. In Spain, the IBEX35 it also closed up 1.10% and close behind was the FTSE MIB Milan index down 1.18%.

European markets closed on Friday after a volatile week in which the Fed confirmed an interest rate hike for March.

This week was also marked by diplomatic negotiations between Russia and Western countries over Ukraine.

In addition, Germany and France announced the results of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on Friday. While French growth reached 7% in 2021, German GDP shrank by 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2021.

European equities fell and the index STOXX 600 suffered a decline for the fourth consecutive week led by the automobile manufacturing and technology sectors, given a panorama of interest rate hikes in the United States and concerns about the crisis in Ukraine.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 1.0%, although it reduced some of the decline after falling by as much as 2% earlier. The benchmark fell 1.8% this week, its worst performance in more than two months.

Eurozone bond yields rose after the aggressive message from the monetary policy meeting of the Federal Reserve of the United States in the middle of the week.

“There’s a lot that is making investors nervous at the moment and it seems like today is the day that European markets really wake up to what the Fed’s increasingly faltering attitude will mean,” said Danni Hewson, financial analyst at AJ Bell.

On the geopolitical front, Russia on Friday sent its strongest signal yet that it is prepared to compromise on US security proposals and reiterated that it does not want to start a conflict in Ukraine.

In European markets, one of the biggest declines per sector was in technology, which closed 1.7%, the worst month since 2008.

Motor shares fell 1.8%, with shares in Volvo which suffered a 3.5% drop after the Swedish truck manufacturer reported lower profits in the fourth quarter and proposed a lower-than-expected dividend.

Meanwhile, the newspapers of the luxury goods group LVMH rose 3.2% after announcing that its quarterly sales growth accelerated, while shares of Signify NV, the world’s largest manufacturer of lighting products, rose 11.0% after reporting better-than-expected quarterly gains .