(CercleFinance.com) – The Paris Stock Exchange is expected to fall slightly on Monday morning at the start of a week that promises to be particularly busy, both from a microeconomic and macroeconomic point of view.
Around 8:15 a.m., the ‘future’ contract on the CAC 40 index – now passed below the August deadline – fell 30 points to 7424.5 points, suggesting an opening tinged with caution.
Investors are preparing for an intense and potentially decisive week with an avalanche of quarterly results, which will be interspersed with meetings of the major central banks.
Publications from the heavyweights Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta Platforms will be particularly scrutinized as investors wonder about the tight valuation of the Nasdaq index, which has jumped 34% since the start of the year.
In the United States, the week will be by far the busiest of the earnings season with a total of 166 S&P 500 companies, including 12 components of the Dow Jones, due to publish their second quarter accounts.
Given the considerable weight that the GAFAMs occupy within the American indices, any surprise, in one direction or another, is likely to have a strong impact on the indices.
For Dan Ives, the specialist in the technology sector at Wedbush Securities, the publications of ‘Big Tech’ could nevertheless hold good surprises.
‘We consider it wise to position ourselves on technology stocks before their second quarter results’, assures the analyst.
“Wall Street will seek to identify the players best placed to take advantage of the 800 billion dollar market linked to artificial intelligence and which will transform the sector in the decade to come,” explains the professional.
Beyond the tech giants, many other sectors will be in the spotlight this week: automotive with GM and Ford, aerospace with Boeing, and energy with ExxonMobil.
But the week promises to be even crazier in Europe, where several big names like LVMH, Unilever Airbus, Stellantis, L’Oréal, TotalEnergies, Volkswagen and STMicroelectronics have planned to unveil their performances in the coming months.
The week will also be marked by the monetary policy meeting of the US Federal Reserve on Tuesday and Wednesday, then by that of the European Central Bank (ECB), scheduled for Thursday.
As for the Fed, a 25 basis point hike seems very likely despite recent progress in the fight against inflation.
The ECB seems to have already implemented a rate hike which should lead it to raise its key rates again by 25 basis points next Thursday.
For some analysts, the week’s extremely rich news could push equity markets even higher.
“The fact that the rate-tightening cycle is nearing its end, combined with easing cost pressures for companies, could lead companies to show some resilience in their results, even in the face of a slowdown in demand,” said Craig Fehr, strategist at Edward Jones.
Copyright © 2023 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.
Did you like this article ? Share it with your friends with the buttons below.
