THE TREND
(Boursier.com) — The CAC40 recovered a little this Monday, up 0.6% around 6,835 points at the end of the morning. The difficult past week and a close below 6,800 points brought the CAC40’s gain since January 1 to barely above 5% after some resounding falls accompanying quarterly publications.
Several central banks, including the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve will make decisions on their rates this week, and the markets will be attentive to the message sent by the big money makers. In fact, if rates approach their peak, central banks may have to keep them at a restrictive level longer than markets expect to bring activity and inflation under control. It is this observation which contributed to the general decline of the markets last week and in particular the CAC 40. As such, PCE inflation and American consumer confidence published on Friday were largely in line with the estimates, reassuring the investors, even if household consumption surprised on the rise.
RISING VALUES
* Sanofi which plunged 18% on Friday, its biggest daily fall in more than 30 years on the stock market, regained 2.3% to 83.3 euros this Monday, while analyst adjustments have multiplied since the announcement of a third quarter and disappointing forecasts, with a drop of 10.4% in its operating income from activities, to 4.028 billion euros, for a net turnover of 11.964 billion euros (+3.2% at CER). The EPS of the activities came to 2.55 euros, down 11.5% based on published data and 2.1% at CER, including the loss of exclusivity of Aubagio. The market consensus was forecasting an EPS of $2.63 for activities of €12.09 billion. Berenberg reduces its target from 115 to 105 euros and SocGen from 118 to 108 euros (‘purchase’). HSBC is now targeting only 110 euros (‘buy’) and Deutsche Bank has adjusted its target from 90 to 80 euros (‘sell’).
* Dassault Systèmes gained 2.5% to 38.8 euros. JP Morgan moved to ‘outperform’ and raised its target from 35 to 46 euros.
* Eramet rose 5.7% to 65.3 euros. Oddo BHF raised its recommendation on the file to ‘outperform’ with an adjusted price target of 89 to 85 euros.
* Air France-KLM timidly recovers 0.6% to 11.11 euros at the start of the week in Paris, after reaching a historic low at the end of last week. Among the latest broker opinions, Barclays maintained its recommendation to ‘overweight’ on the stock with an adjusted price target of 22 to 18 euros, explaining regarding the quarterly accounts that if passenger revenues are good, cargo revenues have fell by 39%.
FALLING VALUES
* ArcelorMittal fell by almost 5% to 20 euros. The group confirmed that an accident occurred on October 28 at its Kostenco coal mine in Kazakhstan. “Currently, 25 of our employees have died and 21 others are still missing,” said the group’s management. “206 people were safely evacuated to the surface.” ArcelorMittal also confirmed, as previously communicated by the Government of Kazakhstan, that the two parties have engaged in discussions regarding the future of ArcelorMittal Temirtau and recently signed a preliminary agreement for a transaction that will transfer ownership to the Republic of Kazakhstan. ArcelorMittal is committed to finalizing this transaction as quickly as possible…
* Worldline fell by 2.8% to 11.3 euros. Many analysts are still adjusting to the issue after last week’s bamboozle. Citi, for example, cuts its target from 40 to 16 euros but remains at ‘buy’ while Redburn downgrades the title of the payment specialist to ‘neutral’ with a target reduced from 40 to 12 euros. “Worldline’s ‘new normal’ could lead to a decline of around 10% in the consensus level of expected revenues over 2024-25, with a stronger decline in profits and free cash flow in our scenario. A shift in “consumers towards non-discretionary spending will weigh more on financial results than on revenues, posing a risk of 17% for the pre-3rd quarter 2024 consensus for the OMDA, and 40% for the cash flow estimates”, affirm the ‘Bloomberg Intelligence’ teams.
* Ubisoft lost more than 2% this Monday to 26.50 euros after its jump on Friday the day after the presentation of its good quarterly results and the maintenance of annual forecasts…