Financial markets put in their best performance of the year on 29 June, enthusiastic over the agreement struck during the night at the EU summit in Brussels, which is expected to ease pressure on Spain and Italy.

Gains on European exchanges were heightened after American markets opened. At closing, Paris was up by 4%, Frankfurt 3.88% and London 2.06%. Madrid (+4.17%) and Milan (+5.14%) reacted even more positively. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones picked up 1.52% and Nasdaq 1.74%.

Relief was also clear on the debt market. Spain’s borrowing rate dropped well below 6.5% and the Italian rate below 6%.

The euro also rose against the US dollar, to 1.268 dollars from 1.2442, on 28 June.

“Europe’s leaders agreed at last on mechanisms that can support the fragile eurozone countries over the longer term, while keeping up pressure on states’ public finances,” welcomed René Defossez, economist at Natixis. For Christian Parisot of Aurel BGC, however, “the positive market reaction comes chiefly from the fact that investors were not really expecting much given the opposing views that seemed to have grown even more pronounced between Paris and Berlin. But there turned out to be positive surprises”.