The Russian Central Bank is facing an emergency. Oil is rising, green stocks – markets in a minute

Europe aims to start the session in negative territory. Asia closes mixed

The Asian session closed mixed and futures traded on the European benchmark indicated the start of the session in the highlighted block in red, on a day when investors were still digesting the text of the minutes of the North American Federal Reserve and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang’s meeting on the slowdown in the economy. Chinese.

Futures on the Euro Stoxx 50 are down 0.1%.

Across Asia, Japan’s Nikkei was down 0.27% while the Topix was up 0.2%. In China, and in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index fell 0.5% and the Shanghai Index rose 0.7%. In South Korea, the Kospi was down 0.1%.

These moves come after on Wednesday (already after the European session) the minutes of the last meeting of the Federal Reserve, which took place on May 3 and 4, were published.

In the minutes, there are no indications that members of the US Federal Reserve may become more aggressive in their monetary policy to combat inflation, having already mentioned what has already been said: the central bank should increase interest rates by 50 basis points. At the next two meetings, one in June and the other in July.

While Fed policymakers see the possibility of the policy rate rising enough to cool the economy, there are some hints in the minutes from the latest meeting that this rate hike cycle may stall, if all goes well: “Money tightening could leave the Fed” Well positioned, at the end of this year, to assess the effects of the rigor of its procedures and analyze to what extent economic developments justify adjustments in that policy.”

The market is still assessing the words of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. The prime minister acknowledged that epidemic prevention measures are affecting the Chinese economy in an unprecedented way since the beginning of the epidemic, calling for employment to be taken into account.

During a video conference hosted by the State Council on Wednesday evening, Li admitted that “the difficulties in March and April were, in some ways, more severe than in 2020,” when the COVID-19 epidemic began, according to the official Xinhua news agency. news agency.

The prime minister gave an example of declines in indicators such as employment, industrial production, energy consumption and freight transport. Li called on tens of thousands of government officials to “make efforts to keep the economy operating at an appropriate level.”