Paris (AFP)

Clinging to the hope aroused by the massive mobilization of central banks and governments to counter the coronavirus, the markets were trying to continue Friday's rebound from the previous day, breaking with a dreadful start to the week.

In Asia, the stock markets were part of the rise of Wall Street Thursday evening. And Europe was taking the same positive direction: Paris and Frankfurt took more than 5% at the opening and London almost 5% too.

In the first exchanges, Milan also gained almost 3% and Madrid a little more than 3%.

As the main beneficiary of the monetary bazooka, the debt market was not to be outdone, with easing happening for almost all countries, starting with Italy, offering a breath of fresh air to the States but also to the whole financial system.

"The latest measures from central banks and governments, far superior in their scope to those taken initially, have a stabilizing effect on the financial markets" and allow a "rebound this morning", underlines Tangi Le Liboux, a strategist for broker Aurel BGC .

The situation remains eminently critical, with an ever heavier toll close to the psychological threshold of 10,000 victims and a constant strengthening of precautionary measures, as in California or Argentina, where the "preventive and compulsory" confinement of the population has been decreed.

Faced with this global disaster, no authority is skimping on the resources deployed, which amount to hundreds of billions. First insensitive to these vertiginous amounts, the markets slowly begin to reassure themselves.

The fact that US President Donald Trump touted the use of chloroquine, an antimalarial, as a possible treatment for the coronavirus on Thursday, after encouraging results in China and France, also offered significant support to financial centers.

Central banks and governments are announcing one after the other large-scale programs to avoid economic recession and market collapse.

Republicans in the United States Senate on Thursday presented an aid package of around 1,000 billion dollars to save the American economy while 70,000 people were laid off in a single week across the United States.

After the radical measures of the Fed, the ECB also released on Wednesday the big artillery with an "emergency" plan of 750 billion euros of repurchases of public and private debts.

This is in addition to a first envelope of 120 billion euros already released and the usual program of asset purchases of 20 billion euros led by the institution.

- Watch out, witches on the horizon -

In this context, the dollar was sought after, to the detriment of the euro which fell Thursday to its lowest level in three years against the American currency, nothing seems to be able to calm the rush of investors towards the greenback.

When the airline sector is hit hard, distribution is running at full speed. To the point that the American distribution chain Walmart will pay $ 365 million in bonuses to its employees paid by the hour, like cashiers, and hire 150,000 people to meet the increased demand.

The oil industry, also greatly weakened, benefited on Friday from the rise in crude prices while a barrel of New York oil soared by almost 24% on Thursday, offsetting almost all of its losses the previous day thanks to measures revival, a hunt for bargains and signs of appeasement in the price war between Moscow and Ryad.

"But this session has everything of the trap: it is a session + of the 4 witches +, that is to say of expiry of the monthly and quarterly contracts on the options and + futures + (futures ed), which promises volatility and high volumes in the current context, "warns Le Liboux, however.

And on the eve of the weekend, and faced with the rapid progression of the pandemic, "in general, the equity markets, even in the event of a very short-term rebound, should remain under very strong pressure", according to him.

"At this point, especially in the United States, the stock market has declined significantly less than during the 2008-2009 crisis. But it is true, however, that the decline is much faster this year and that the markets have not still been able to bounce more than two sessions in a row. "

© 2020 AFP