(BFM Bourse) – The Parisian index gained a little ground this Wednesday, awakened by less robust employment data last month in the United States while Jerome Powell opens the way to a rate cut this year, while remaining cautious. The CAC 40 gained 0.3% this Wednesday evening.
Amorphous at lunchtime, the latest news from the United States has somewhat awakened the Paris Stock Exchange. The CAC 40 ended up 0.28% at 7,954.74 points on Wednesday evening and therefore resumed its progression towards 8,000 points.
The big event this Wednesday was the speech of the President of the American Federal Reserve (Fed), during a hearing before a committee of the House of Representatives. And the head of the Fed reaffirmed Wednesday that he expected interest rates to start falling this year, without venturing to communicate a precise date.
“If the economy generally performs as expected, it will likely be appropriate to begin phasing out restrictive policy at some point this year,” Jerome Powell said in his comments. “But the economic outlook is uncertain and continued progress towards our 2% inflation target is not assured,” he continued with a cautious bias.
On Thursday, Jerome Powell will also be heard by the Senate. Also on Thursday, the European Central Bank will hold a monetary policy meeting followed by a speech by its president, Christine Lagarde.
The market also took note of signs of relaxation on the job market in the United States. According to the ADP report, job creation in the private sector was weaker than expected in February, with 140,000 new positions, compared to 150,000 expected by the consensus. And according to the Jolts report, job offers fell more slightly than expected to 8.863 million in January, against 8.90 million expected by the market and after 8.889 million in December.
Investors therefore took the temperature of the American job market with these two statistics, before the official figures which will be published on Friday.
On the value side, the reinsurer Scor jumped 8.2% after publishing a record net profit for 2023, thanks to lower claims.
Schneider Electric finally ended up 0.4% despite a downgrade in Deutsche Bank which went from buy to hold on value, judging that after the group’s good stock market performance, the share’s upside potential is appears limited.
Conversely, Dassault Aviation dropped 5.4% after publishing its annual results. UBS notes that both revenue and adjusted operating profit were below Visible Alpha consensus.
Telecom equipment manufacturer Ekinops lost 5.7%. The group avoided formulating outlooks for the current year due to lack of visibility.
On other markets, the euro strengthened (+0.5%) against the dollar to $1.0913 after Jerome Powell’s comments. An ounce of gold gained 0.9% to $2,146.85 after setting a new high at $2,149.25. Oil rebounds after the first estimates on American stocks. The May contract on North Sea Brent rose 1.8% to $83.53 per barrel, while the April contract on WTI listed in New York gained 2.4% to $80 per barrel.
Sabrina Sadgui – ©2024 BFM Bourse