(BFM Bourse) – The Paris Stock Exchange continues a fourth session of increase. The CAC 40 jumped 1.6% on Wednesday evening, relieved after the publication of US inflation figures that came out lower than expected last month.
Up at midday, the Paris Stock Exchange significantly accelerated its gains after the publication in the early afternoon of US inflation figures in June. Dreaded by investors, the statistic finally shows a slowdown in the rise in prices across the Atlantic last month.
The reaction was immediate. The CAC 40, which won 0.7% before the big meeting of the day, more than doubled its gains to close up 1.57% at 7333.01 points. On Wall Street, this same enthusiasm also won the American indices with an S&P 500 (+0.7% to 4,468.22 points) and a Nasdaq (+0.75% to 15,376.50 points) at their highest for 15 months.
The headline inflation figure actually came out at 3% over one year, while that of “core” inflation, i.e. excluding food and energy prices, stood at at 4.8%, according to data from the Bureau of Statistics and Labor. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal, expected a figure of 3.1% over one year and 5% for the “core” index.
Operators will take note on Thursday of producer price figures, another piece of data well monitored by the American Federal Reserve (Fed) to gauge price behavior, and therefore valuable in steering its monetary policy.
This release of these price data is expected like milk on the fire as the Fed holds its monetary policy meeting in two weeks. The statistics of the day, however, give hope that the Fed eases its monetary tightening, even if its members have signaled for a long time that a new rate hike was to be expected and will be, unless surprised, recorded.
Its Canadian neighbor did not procrastinate too long and on Wednesday raised its main key rate by 0.25 percentage point or 0.25%, to bring it to 5%, its highest level in 22 years.
Axa ensures, the acquisition of Thales hailed
As for values, STMicroelectronics finished at the top of the CAC 40 thanks to a gain of 4.7%, benefiting from an increase in recommendation from Jefferies to “hold” against “sell” previously.
Axa gained 3.1% while according to Reuters the group would consider selling or listing separately its XL Re reinsurance branch. Asked by the agency, the company did not comment.
Thales gained 3%, the market appreciating the announcement of the takeover of Cobham Aerospace Communications, which specializes in aircraft cockpit security communications systems, for an enterprise value of 1.1 billion dollars.
Casino recovered 10.8% while according to The echoesthe two capital contribution offers, those of the duo Kretinsky-Ladreit de Lacharrière, and that of the trio Niel-Pigasse-Zouari will both be raised.
Air France-KLM lost 3.8%, hurt by a downgrade from Deutsche Bank, which lowered its advice to “hold” versus “buy” previously.
On the side of small and mid caps, Theranexus dropped nearly 27% after its fundraising intended to finance its clinical trial phase for its potential treatment against Batten’s disease.
On other markets, the euro jumped 1% against the dollar to 1.1124 dollar after the figures for US inflation. Oil prices are moving up slightly. The September contract on Brent from the North Sea rose 1% to 80.22 dollars a barrel, while the August contract on WTI listed in New York rose 1.5% to 75.94 dollars a barrel.
Sabrina Sadgui – ©2023 BFM Bourse