(BFM Bourse) – Investors’ doubts about future rate cuts from major central banks still dictate the trend. Over the week, the CAC 40 lost more than 1.2%.
The trend on the Paris Stock Exchange remains feverish. The CAC 40 fell 0.4% at the close on Friday evening, below 7,400 points at 7,371.64 points. On a weekly basis, the flagship index of the Paris Stock Exchange therefore lost 1.25%, despite a gain of 1.1% on Thursday.
Market progress remains dependent on investor doubts about future rate cuts from major central banks. And it is not the statistics published today in the United States that will push the American Federal Reserve to lower its rates from March.
We can cite the morale of American investors which is in good shape, so much so that it is at its highest since July 2021, according to the American consumer confidence index compiled by the University of Michigan. It thus stood at 78.8 in January, against 70 points expected and after 69.7 in December.
Bond yields therefore continued to rise in the light of this statistic which once again rules out the possibility of downward action by the Fed on key rates. The yield on the American 10-year bond is increasing towards 4.20% to 4.17%.
The market now puts the probability of a rate cut by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) as early as March at 52% compared to around 90% in December, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
In Europe, these same fears are also reflected in bond yields, the yield on the German 10-year is trading at 2.30% and that on the French debt of the same maturity is moving at 2.82%.
Analysts lead the way
Some stocks stand out thanks to analyst ratings. Teleperformance jumped 8.6% thanks to Stifel which switched to buying the value, judging that the group is at the “dawn of a new adventure”.
Crédit Agricole SA increased by 1.1%, driven by Morgan Stanley which went from “underweight” to “online weighting”, which means that it is no longer for sale on the mutual bank .
Lisi plunged more than 10% after the Peugeot family, via its holding company Peugeot Invest, sold 1.9 million shares at 21 euros per share, a discount of 12% compared to Thursday’s closing price.
Auto equipment manufacturers are suffering: Forvia dropped 7%, Valeo 6.2%, Plastic Omnium 4.8%. “The planets are not well aligned with the sector, the environment for 2024 looks complicated, with a stock rebuilding movement that has gone beyond reasonable, inflation persists and compensation from manufacturers are perhaps not up to par”, underlines an analyst.
On the small and mid-cap side, a crazy day for 2CRSi which soared by more than 55% after announcing deliveries and sales at the top of specialized servers for artificial intelligence.
On other markets, the euro is almost stable against the dollar at 1.0885 dollars. Oil prices are trending downward. The March North Sea Brent contract fell 0.6% to $78.61 per barrel, while the February contract for WTI listed in New York fell 0.9% to $73.31 per barrel. .
Sabrina Sadgui – ©2024 BFM Bourse