(CercleFinance.com) – The Paris Stock Exchange ended the day with a gain of 0.71%, at 7,665 points, helped by the performance of luxury goods (Kering at +4.9%, LVMH at +2.6% and Hermès at +1.8%) without forgetting URW (+4.7%) or STMicro (+3.5%).
This morning, investors learned of an avalanche of quarterly results (see below), including URW, Crédit Agricole, Société Générale, ArcelorMittal and Kering.
A few hours later, the publication of unemployment registration statistics in the United States confirmed the hypothesis of a ‘soft landing’ of the American economy, with the Department of Labor announcing -9,000 claimants, to 218,000.
Caution nevertheless prevails in the bond compartment, where investors continue to digest – quite difficultly – the latest statements from Jerome Powell and Neel Kashkari.
The two senior Fed dignitaries pushed back the horizon of easing rates, with perhaps no more than two to three rate cuts envisaged in 2024, because of growth which remains singularly robust.
As a result, the yield on US Treasury bonds is rising again (+6.6 pts), with that on ten-year paper reaching 4.16%.
In Europe, the 10-year Bund, the region’s benchmark, exceeds 2.35% (+11 pts).
Note that Brent crosses $81 per barrel (+2.1%), while the euro remains stable against the greenback, at $1.076/E.
In French company news, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) gains more than 4.7% after publishing for 2023 an RNRAPA (adjusted recurring net income per share) up 3.3% to 9.62 euros, higher than its forecasts, as well as an EBITDA of 2.2 billion, up 6.7% at constant scope.
Crédit Agricole (-5.2%, bottom of the CAC) announces increasing its 2023 dividend to 1.05 euros per share (+24% in annual comparison, excluding 2019 catch-up) for an underlying EPS increase of 6.5 % at 1.80 euros over the past year, as well as a stable underlying ROTE of 12.6%.
Societe Generale publishes for the year 2023 a net profit group share increasing by 36.6% to 2.49 billion euros and an ROTE improved by 1.7 points to 4.2%, despite a gross profit operating income (RBE) down 28.2% to 6.58 billion.
ArcelorMittal (+4.9%) publishes group EBITDA, the indicator most followed by the market, of 1.27 billion dollars in the fourth quarter, compared to 1.26 billion the previous year and well beyond the average forecast of analysts, who expected $1.2 billion.
Finally, Kering (+4.9%), parent company of Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta, reveals recurring net profit share of the group down 18% to 3.06 billion euros for 2023, with a current operating margin of 24.3%, compared to 27.5% in 2022.
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