Following a string of key indicators from Europe and the United States (US), equities initially declined but managed to make gains during the closing session as the dollar weakened.
Observing these 2 important events, the European Central Bank (ECB) confirmed an increase in interest rates by 75 basis points at yesterday's policy meeting while the Chairman of the Federal Reserve (Fed), Jerome Powell expressed his 'commitment' to contain inflation.
The initial reaction after the important speech has caused the dollar to strengthen but then returned to weakness until the beginning of the Asian trading session on Friday morning.
Following that, Wall Street showed gains with the Dow Jones Industrials up 0.61% at 31,774.52, the S&P 500 up 0.66% at 4,006.18 and the Nasdaq Composite up 0.6% at 11,862.13.
In the European zone, the STOXX 600 index rose 0.50% while MSCI's gauge of worldwide shares reached 0.76%.
In the Asian region, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.61% while Topix added 0.35% while South Korea's Kospi reached 033% and Kosdaq climbed 1.25%.
Commented Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities, these fluctuations are not new and the rate hikes confirmed the possibility of a recession.
So based on these facts, the main question for investors is the level of moderate or severe recession that will hit the global economy.
Also stealing the spotlight yesterday were government bond yields which saw an increase with the US 10-year yield jumping from a 4-month low of 2.516% but still below the record high of 3.498%.
A bit on commodities, crude oil prices rose 1% after falling to a 7-month low earlier in the session with Brent futures up 1.3% at $89.15 and WTI up 2.0% at $83.54.
