The Paris Stock Exchange sharply reduced its gains, shared between good corporate publications and the surprise contraction of 1.4% of GDP in the United States in the first quarter, in preliminary data, against an increase of 1% anticipated. While the statistics should hardly dissuade the Fed from raising its rates by half a point next week, a tightening of 75 basis points seems excluded.
Shortly after 4 p.m., the Bedroom 40 gained 0.42% to 6,472.09 points, after a peak at 6,575.95 (+2.02%) in a business volume of 1.85 billion euros. In New York, the Dow Jones takes 0.35% and the Nasdaq Composite 0.75%. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, jumped 12.6% after publishing better-than-expected results last night and announcing growth in the number of daily users of the social network above expectations. Chipmaker Qualcomm is up 5%, driven by results that also beat expectations.
Autos, technology and oil stocks are the most sought after in this busy weekend of the season in terms of publications. Bernstein analysts called the results robust in Europe, adding that 61% of companies reporting so far exceeded expectations. The good surprise reserved by Meta is also considered reassuring at a time when the profits of American “high tech” are under close surveillance after the disappointments caused by Netflix and Alphabet. Apple and Amazon will be the last of the Gafams to publish their quarterly accounts this evening.
The dollar continues to rise
The world’s major financial centers have recently buckled under the weight of the uncertainties created by the war in Ukraine, the prospect of a drastic tightening of monetary policy by the Fed and the risk of a slowdown in the Chinese economy raised by the policy ” zero-Covid” which paralyzes several large cities in the country.
The greenback broke through the 130 yen threshold for the first time since 2002, as the Bank of Japan kept its rates and government bond yield target unchanged, against the trend of other central banks. For its part, the euro is trading at 1.05 dollars, a 5-year low, weighed down in particular by Gazprom’s stoppage of its gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.
TotalEnergies’ profits have tripled
Capgemini increased by 3.5%. The SSII has confirmed its objectives for 2022 after having recorded an acceleration in its growth in the first quarter. For the current financial year, it is still counting on growth in its turnover at constant exchange rates of between 8% and 10%, on an operating margin of between 12.9% and 13.1% and on a generation of organic free cash flow in excess of €1.7 billion.
Dassault Systems reaped 4% driven by a note from Barclays, which went from “online weighting” to “overweight” on the title of the 3D design assistance software publisher. The other technological stocks follow the movement following the example of Soitec (+6.7%) and Worldline (+5.9%).
Second weighting of the Cac 40, TotalEnergies wins 3%. The oil group saw its net income triple to 9 billion dollars in the first quarter. It also plans to increase the amount of its share buybacks to $3 billion in the first half, from $2 billion previously. It also announced that it had provisioned $4.1 billion in its accounts in connection with its Arctic LNG 2 liquefied natural gas project in Russia following European Union sanctions against Moscow.
Albioma jumped 15.5%. The renewable energy producer has reached an agreement with the private equity firm KKR & Co for its takeover at a price of 50 euros per share, to which is added a dividend of 84 cents which will be paid in cash. The offer represents a 51.6% premium to the price on March 7, the last to not have been influenced by market speculation on KKR’s interest in Albioma.
Solutions 30 13.9% drop. The service provider for new technologies recorded a drop in its operating profit for its 2021 financial year, which ended at the end of March. Gross operating profit contracted by 23% to 82.4 million euros and adjusted operating profit by 33% to 40.8 million.