(BFM Bourse) – BNP Paribas and TotalEnergies acted as shock absorbers. The CAC 40 only lost 0.07% on Tuesday evening before Jerome Powell’s speech.
The Paris Stock Exchange limited its decline despite the scattered evolution of the indices on Wall Street. The CAC 40 conceded only a few points (-0.07%) to 7,132.35 points, on reserve before the speech by the Chairman of the American Federal Reserve (Fed), Jerome Powell. A speech all the more expected, as it comes after an excellent employment report published last Friday.
The central banker will therefore speak at 6:40 p.m., a little less than a week after his press conference organized on the occasion of the announcement of the Fed’s 25 basis point (0.25%) rate hike. . “If Jerome Powell keeps his cool and his message is not consistent with the previous one, we could see a rally in the US stock market. This is a scenario that many are waiting for because they do not think the Fed will surprise the markets with something new and risk its reputation,” said Naeem Aslam of Avatrade.
“The markets seem to be behaving as in 2020/2021 and this could lead to a new bubble in certain assets, given the strong improvement in financial conditions in recent months. These conditions happen to be better in January 2023, with a rate of the Fed at almost 5%, than when it was at 0.0%” recalls for his part, Vincent Boy, Market Analyst at IG France.
BNP’s return to shareholders appreciated
In the meantime, investors continue to dissect the results and announcements of companies. BNP Paribas gained 2.6% after raising its 2025 targets and deciding to buy back 5 billion euros of its own shares this year. In its wake, Societe Generale, which will publish its accounts on Wednesday, advanced by 2.2% while Crédit Agricole will unveil its results on Thursday.
The oil sector is driven by the rebound in black gold but also by the record results of Britain’s BP, which rose by nearly 8% on the London Stock Exchange. TotalEnergies, which will publish its results on Wednesday morning, won 3.4%, Vallourec gained 2.6% while CGG advanced 6%.
But it was Renault that achieved the best performance in the CAC 40 with an increase of 4.4%. The market integrates the announcements and the speeches of the leaders occurred Monday morning at the time of a conference on the recasting of the Alliance Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi.
In the lower section, we find Carrefour (-5%) weighed down by a deterioration on the part of Exane BNP Paribas to “underperformance”. Casino for its part sold 3.6%
Airbus lost 3%, as Berenberg lowered its advice to “sell”, seeing an adverse influence of inflation on the aircraft manufacturer’s margins.
SES-imagotag ended in equilibrium following the acquisition by its subsidiary Captana of Belive.ai, a young company specializing in image analysis for physical commerce.
On other markets, the euro fell 0.3% against the dollar to 1.0694 dollars before Jerome Powell’s speech. Oil contracts are rebounding after the powerful earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria. “The market feared that the earthquake would hit two major oil pipelines, in Turkey and Iraq, reducing supply,” said John Kilduff of Again Capital quoted by AFP.
Brent crude from the North Sea for delivery in April thus gained 3% to 83.45 dollars a barrel, while that on WTI listed in New York for delivery in March rose 3.6% to 76.83 dollars a barrel.
Sabrina Sadgui – ©2023 BFM Bourse