(BFM Bourse) – The Paris Stock Exchange ends this last session of April in a clear decline, after contradictory data on prices and less convincing company publications. The CAC 40 fell by 1% on Tuesday evening, bringing its decline to 2.7% for the whole month of April.
“In April, don’t uncover yourself by a thread.” And for the Paris Stock Exchange, this fourth month of the year resulted in a feverish trend. Between numerous company publications and macroeconomic statistics, investors have had a lot of data to digest.
Weighted down by the uncontrolled slide of its automobile stocks, the CAC 40 closed this last session of April with a sharp drop of 0.99%, below 8,000 points at 7,984.93 points.
Over the month of April as a whole, the index also suffered the blow, losing 2.69%. This is the first monthly decline of the year for the Parisian index, but also since October 2023. It is therefore with a clear decline that the CAC 40 will resume trading on Thursday, the Parisian market being closed Wednesday for May 1st.
Investors had a lot to do on Tuesday, namely analyzing a burst of company publications as well as the latest statistics relating to prices on both sides of the Atlantic.
Divergent trajectories
On the Old Continent, inflation showed signs of easing in April. In harmonized data, to facilitate comparisons between countries, prices increased by 2.4% year-on-year in the fourth month of the year, stable compared to the previous month and in line with expectations. Growth exceeded expectations for the first quarter, increasing by 0.3% in the euro zone, thanks in particular to Spain (+0.7%).
The fight against inflation is well underway, which should lead the European Central Bank (ECB) to initiate its first rate cut in June. “Higher-than-expected first-quarter GDP data released today means the eurozone has emerged from recession, and both core and services inflation fell in April, but this does not “will not prevent the European Central Bank from starting its monetary policy easing cycle in June”, judges Capital Economics.
In the United States, inflation remains stubborn, as evidenced by a sharp acceleration in the cost of employment, by 1.2% in the first quarter. This is its fastest pace in a year and a half. This new statistic is confusing on the eve of the monetary policy decision of the American Federal Reserve, and thus reinforces the feeling that the Fed will not be in a hurry to initiate the first rate cuts.
Moreover, the bond market was the scene of investor tension over the trajectory of the American Federal Reserve’s rates. The 10-year US debt rate quickly rose to 4.663% from 4.61% Monday evening.
As for business publications, the automobile industry is in difficulty. Stellantis suffered the biggest drop in the CAC 40, and fell by 10% due to revenues below expectations. Stellantis drags Renault down (-5.5%).
Mercedes and Volkswagen lost 5.6% and 4.7% respectively in Frankfurt, the two German automobile groups having been penalized by disappointing profitability in the first quarter.
Air France-KLM lost 4.3% weighed down by results below expectations, due in particular to maintenance issues at KLM.
VusionGroup (formerly SES imagotag) jumped 15.5% after announcing an amendment to its contract with the American giant Walmart, representing order intake of around 1 billion euros.
On other markets, the euro lost 0.3% against the dollar at 1.0688 dollars, after the latest American statistics. Oil is falling. The July contract on North Sea Brent lost 1.1% to $86.26 per barrel, while that of June on WTI listed in New York returned 1% to $82.99 per barrel.
Sabrina Sadgui – ©2024 BFM Bourse