Cac 40: The Paris Stock Exchange puts doubts aside and continues its rebound to nearly 7200 points


(BFM Bourse) – Relatively volatile on Thursday, the Paris market nevertheless ended with a new gain, putting the CAC 40 on track to sign a rebound this week if the last session confirms the renewed appetite for risk.

Quickly turning into the red after a positive opening, the barometer of the tricolor rating tried to stabilize at midday, but only really took off in the afternoon, encouraged by the orientation of Wall Street in the opening. Thus the CAC 40, which remained uncertain for most of the day, found the resources to hang +0.3% at the close at 7,194.16 points, a third increase in four sessions which positions it favorably to sign a small weekly rebound, except disappointment on Friday.

Clearly less endowed with technology stocks than Wall Street, the tricolor index thus resisted the decline of the Nasdaq Composite relatively well at the start of the week, the index of new American technologies having on Wednesday recorded a drop of just over 10% compared to compared to its previous peak – a “correction” in the stock market sense of the term. Thursday at the mid-American session, the Nasdaq on the contrary led the charge at +1.8% (+1.3% on the S&P 500, +1.1% on the Dow).

The recent decline in growth stocks is, as a reminder, caused by the rapid rise in bond yields, itself induced by the possibility that the Fed will opt for an aggressive strategy vis-à-vis inflation. “The start of monetary tightening often causes significant volatility, and there is always this risk of a policy error ending the economic cycle”, underlines Kristina Hooper, chief strategist at Invesco.

If the Fed and the ECB are preparing to tighten the screw in an attempt to stem inflation -Eurostat confirmed this morning that consumer price inflation reached +5% in the euro zone over one year in December, its highest level ever-, the Chinese central bank took a second step towards a more accommodating policy on Thursday. Under the pressure of an economic recovery that is running out of steam and a real estate sector weakened by its debts, the institution lowered one of its benchmark interest rates from 3.8% to 3.7%. The objective is to reduce borrowing costs for households and businesses in order to support an economy that is losing momentum under the effect of the major difficulties in the real estate sector, the engine of Chinese growth.

Atos collapses, Ubisoft keeps pace

For once, the Parisian market’s rankings have not sacrificed to the endless alternation between value/growth covid/reopening that has shaped the market since the end of 2021. The biggest increases in the flagship index went to Veolia (+2.2% after the implementation of the new governance of Suez following the completion of the takeover bid), Engie (+1.7%), Vivendi (+1.5%) or Sanofi (+1.3%) , companies whose valuation is not particularly influenced by current concerns about rates or the coronavirus.

BNP Paribas (-2% for a fifth session of decline in a row), ArcelorMittal (-1.6%) and URW (-1.3%) brought up the rear, TotalEnergies (-1.1%) suffering some catches of profits (-1.8%) the day after a high for more than three years. Alstom remained poorly oriented (also -1.1%) despite a level of activity in line with its forecasts for the 3rd quarter and its optimism displayed in the short and medium term.

On the values ​​front, the news of the day is nevertheless to be sought elsewhere, on the side of Soitec, where the appointment of a new general manager in place of the emblematic boss Paul Boudre has provoked the wrath of the executive committee vis-à-vis -to the Board of Directors. This open crisis at the top of the company caused a sharp drop in the course of the specialist in semiconductor materials (-18.2%). In the other direction, Valneva offered itself a rebound of almost 20% while its vaccine seems effective against the Omicron variant, according to a study by a German laboratory. Ubisoft (+2.7%) increased its rise to more than 18% in three sessions, since the announcement of the takeover of Microsoft by Activision which is reviving speculation in the sector.

Paused at the start of the day, oil prices were also on the rise at the end of the day at 88.93 dollars per barrel of Brent (+0.55%) and 87.65 dollars (+0.79%) for the WTI.

In terms of currencies, the single European currency changed little (-0.03% to 1.1341 dollars). Bitcoin recovered more than 3.5% to 43,209 dollars.

Guillaume Bayre – ©2022 BFM Bourse



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