(CercleFinance.com) – The Paris stock market fell around -0.3% to 6,600 after rising from 6,500 to 6,620 (almost back to equilibrium during the clearing of the March contract): the weekly balance sheet is close to +6 %.
Wall Street is in modest decline (the Dow Jones crumbles by -0.3%, the S&P500 is stable and the Nasdaq shows +0.5%) in this session of the 4 witches which concludes a quarter down – 13%.
The euro-Stoxx50 -stable- is just as resilient as the US indices, like the DAX40 in Frankfurt (-0.1%).
Some numbers out in the US: The Conference Board’s Composite Leading Indicators Index for the US rose as expected 0.3% in February to 119.9, after falling 0.5 % in January and an increase of 0.8% in December 2021.
US existing home sales in February were down -7.2% from January 2022, and -2.4% from February 2021, according to the National Federation of Realtors (NAR). On an annualized basis, sales amounted to 6.02 million units.
The NAR specifies that over one year, the stock of unsold homes increased slightly to stand at 870,000 at the end of February (compared to 860,000 a month earlier), which represents 1.7 months of stock, at the current rate of sales. .
In addition, the median price of old housing sold has increased by 15% in one year, to $357,300, i.e. continuous price inflation for 120 consecutive months, the longest sequence ever recorded (mortgage rates have crossed the 4% at the start of the week to settle at 4.15% on Thursday).
On this side of the Atlantic, in Ukraine, Russian troops continue their offensive, day after day, notably in Lviv, Mukolaiv and Mariupol. In this context, the European Commission has announced that its ‘freeze and seize’ task force will intensify its international action to ensure the implementation of sanctions against the Russian and Belarusian oligarchs.
While yesterday the markets were talking about a possible Russian default, it seems that Moscow was able to honor its debts by making its bond payments denominated in dollars. Several media are indeed reporting that JP Morgan Chase was able to receive the expected payments from the Russian Central Bank, thus removing the risk of default in the very short term.
“Nevertheless, investors remained cautious after the Kremlin refuted claims that major progress had been made in peace talks in Ukraine,” a Wells Fargo analyst said Thursday.
The Euro undergoes a consolidation of -0.6% towards $1.1040 after a gain of +1.5% since Monday: the yield of OATs and Bunds relaxes by -3 basis points (to 0.817% and 0.361% ), but it doesn’t make a difference with the T-Bonds which erase -4Pts to 2.149%.
Oil stabilizes around $107, the week’s high, WTI caps around $104 on the NYMEX, Gold falls -0.7%
In the securities news in Paris, Wendel publishes an NAV per share at the end of 2021 very close to its historical high, at 188.1 euros, up 20.1% over one year, and announces an annual ordinary dividend of three euros per share, up 3.4%.
EDF announces the launch and the terms of a capital increase for an amount of more than 3.1 billion euros with maintenance of the PSR, an operation in which the French State will take part in the amount of its participation of 83.88 % in the capital (i.e. 2.6 billion euros).
EssilorLuxottica announces the finalization of its agreement with CooperCompanies for SightGlass Vision, a joint venture aimed at accelerating the commercialization of innovative ophthalmic lens technologies and myopia control solutions.
Finally, Air Liquide announces that it has launched a staggered investment of more than 300 million euros in four state-of-the-art production units in Japan, to produce more than 1.5 million Nm3 per year of nitrogen and other very high purity.
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