(CercleFinance.com) – After gaining 1.38% yesterday, the Paris Stock Exchange confirms its upward momentum and ends the day’s session with a gain of 1.36%, to 6,715 points. This new push allows the CAC to reconnect with its pre-war levels in Ukraine.
For its part, the Euro-Stoxx50 rose by 0.95%, just behind Frankfurt (+1.12%) while London was immobile (+0.00%).
Across the Atlantic, Dow Jones (-0.1%), S&P500 (-0.5%) and the Nasdaq (-1% despite +6% on Tesla) have lost all their initial lead and are sinking into the red, in the wake of a sudden deterioration in the bond markets that began in the middle of the followingnoon and the T-Bonds are sinking their annual lows with yields up from 11 to 13Pts on the ’10 years’ (2.9500% and 3.010 % respectively), the ’30 years’ rising to 2.975% (+10Pts).
While many uncertainties remain around the fate of Ukraine, the surge in inflation or even the pace of monetary tightening by the Fed, the markets in Europe are benefiting from good quarterly companies.
In Paris, investors were also reassured by the debate between the two rounds of the presidential election which confirmed Emmanuel Macron’s status as favorite. The CAC40 therefore celebrates in advance the political continuity that is looming.
In Europe, the German 10-year, considered the benchmark rate for the euro zone, plunged in the followingnoon and posted +5.5Pts to 0.96% while French OATs posted +6Pts to 1.395% of the never seen since 2017.
And the Italian BTPs, the Spanish Bonos show no less than +10Basic points for new annual records at 2.6150% (not revised since May 2019) and 1.900% respectively (worst score for the Bonos since September 2015).
This morning, investors were able to find out regarding the business climate in France for the month of April. This is deteriorating slightly, given the synthetic indicator of INSEE, which lost one point to 106, but nevertheless remains above its long-term average (100).
This deterioration results in particular from the deterioration of the economic situation in retail trade, while the climate is stable in services, brightens slightly in industry and improves in construction.
Inflation in the Eurozone is estimated at 7.4% in March ( once morest 5.9% in February), a level close to the initial estimate of +7.5%.
According to Eurostat, the main contributor to this inflation is energy (+4.36%) ahead of services (+1.12%) then food, alcohol and tobacco (+1.1%) and industrial goods excluding energy (+0.9%).
The EU’s annual inflation rate stood at 7.8% in March, compared to 6.2% in February… to be compared with +1.7% in March 2021. France is a good performer rises with +5.1% (only Malta does better with 4.5%) while inflation is raging in Estonia (14.8%) and Lithuania (15.6%).
Thwarting cautious forecasts linked to the geopolitical situation, massive confinement in China, shortages of spare parts and raw materials, US leading indicators rose once more by +0.3% in March, to 119.8 according to the Conference Board’s monthly survey published on Thursday.
On the other hand, the ‘Philly Fed’ index (industrial activity in the central-eastern region of the United States) fell by -10 Pts to 17.6 this month, while economists predicted a drop towards the 20 threshold.
The number of weekly registrations for unemployment benefits remained almost stable (-2,000 to 184,000) but the number of people regularly receiving benefits fell by -58,000 to 1,417,000. a drop of 58,000 from the previous week’s figure.
In addition to the presidential election on Sunday, the weekend also promises to be busy in terms of corporate results.
In the United States, we expect the quarterly results of American Express, AT&T and Verizon by tomorrow.
Monetary policy also remains at the heart of the debate ahead of the highly anticipated speeches by Jerome Powell, the head of the Fed, and Christine Lagarde, the president of the ECB, on the occasion of the spring meetings organized by the IMF and the World Bank.
In the news of French companies, the champions of building materials stand out with St Gobain and Legrand at +3.6%.
Alstom, which signed a major contract to supply 100 tram sets in Australia (State of Victoria), rose by 3.2%.
Carrefour (-2.9%) yesterday evening published sales including tax up +3.4% on a comparable basis (LFL) to 20,239 ME in the 1 st quarter (+7.1% at constant exchange rates).
The distributor of electrical equipment Rexel (+6.3%) indicates that it recorded sales of nearly 4.38 billion euros for the first three months of 2022, up 31.4% in published data, and 16% like-for-like and at a constant number of days.
Getlink (+2.3% in Paris) announces consolidated Group revenue up 46% at constant exchange rates, to 227.8 million euros in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021 .
