(CercleFinance.com) – The Paris Stock Exchange concludes this day of ‘four witches’ in balance (+0.04%), at 8164 points, with increases in Stellantis (+2.5%) and Alstom (+2 .1%) being notably offset by the declines of STMicro (-3.4%) and URW (-1.7%) in substantial volumes with nearly 8 billion euros exchanged since the opening.
After peaking around 8,212 points in the afternoon, the CAC40 gave up its profits in the last minutes of trading.
The index nevertheless rose almost 1.7% over the past week and almost 8.5% since the start of the year.
On the statistics front, American consumer confidence remained generally stable in March, according to the index calculated by the University of Michigan which came out at 76.5 in preliminary estimate, compared to 76.9 the previous month.
If the index falls by 0.5% compared to February, this variation is within the margin of error.
The index, however, shows an increase of 23.4% compared to March 2023 and consumers remain very present as demonstrated on Thursday by solid retail sales, accompanied by the strongest annualized increase in producer prices since September.
For its part, the Empire State index signals a sharp contraction in manufacturing activity in New York State in March, with the index plunging 19 points from the previous month to settle at -20.9.
‘Demand has weakened due to the significant drop in new orders and the drop in deliveries,’ the investigators explain, adding that labor market indicators have also weakened.
The pace of increase in input prices moderated somewhat, while that of selling prices remained stable. Businesses expect conditions to improve over the next six months, although optimism remained muted.
Finally, import prices in the United States increased by 0.3% in February compared to the previous month (+0.2% excluding petroleum products), while export prices increased by 0. 8%, both in raw data and excluding foodstuffs.
The picture is more comforting over 12 months: import and export prices fell respectively by 0.8% (-0.5% excluding petroleum products) and 1.8% last month (-1 % excluding foodstuffs).
The bond markets are coming out of a ‘complicated’ week: rates have tightened significantly since Tuesday, and Thursday’s session was very negative.
No improvement on the horizon this Friday with T-Bonds deteriorating further by +2Pts to 4.315%, same difference for our OATs (at 2.885%), then on Bunds (at 2.44%) and +3Pts on Italian BTPs at 3.7030%.
Note a big hit of stress on bitcoin around 2:30 a.m.: it fell from 72,000 to around $67,300 (floor tested around 10:00 this morning) before rebounding towards $68,400… which makes it barely stable over the week elapsed.
In stock news, Bolloré published Thursday evening a net profit share of the group of 268 million euros for 2023, after 3.4 billion the previous year, for a turnover stable at nearly 13.7 billion (-5% organically).
Following the announcement made in November, Spie announces the completion of the acquisition of ROBUR Industry Service Group GmbH, with the necessary regulatory approvals having been received and the conditions precedent having been fully lifted.
Elis announces that it has placed, as part of its EMTN (Euro Medium Term Notes) program, a principal amount of 400 million euros in senior unsecured bonds, with a maturity of six years and offering a fixed annual coupon of 3.75%.
Euroapi (-17.5%) has suspended its 2024 outlook, due to the suspension of API production at its Italian site in Brindisi due to quality control failures, a situation which should impact the group’s operational and financial performance.
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