Evolving in ups and downs since the start of the week, the Paris Stock Exchange posted moderate progress this Thursday at a time when observers are dissecting several quarterly company publications after having come to terms with the idea that less pronounced monetary easing than initially expected is looming for the American Federal Reserve.
Around 10:15 a.m., the Cac 40 gained 0.45% to 8,016.7 points.
Wall Street should move forward at the opening the day after a decline from 0.12% to 1.15%. The S&P 500 fell yesterday for a fourth session in a row, its longest series of declines since January. The benchmark index now shows a decline of 4% compared to the record level reached in March.
After a recovery in the last two months of 2023, which extended into the first quarter, stocks are now struggling as investors have cooled their ardor over the timing and extent of easing monetary policy of the Fed. If there were still any doubts, the central bank president all but cemented the likelihood that there would be no rate cut in June. Head of the Cleveland regional office, Loretta Mester said yesterday that it will take more encouraging economic data to convince her that inflation is really heading towards the target. The central bankers put the economy where they wanted it to be. They no longer focus on inflation anymore, argues Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. My feeling is they need two, probably three consecutive months of numbers inflation rates compatible with the 2% target. In this case, the earliest will be September. I don’t see rates easing before then.”
Sartorius Stedim disappoints, Planisware succeeds in its first stock market steps
The main macroeconomic meetings will be concentrated in the United States this Thursday with new weekly unemployment claims, the Philly Fed activity index for the month of April, sales of existing homes in March and the index of leading indicators of March from the Conference Board, all between 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.
Two Cac 40 companies published their quarterly turnover figures this morning and two others, EssilorLuxottica and L’Oréal, will do so after the close. Edenred gained 3% after reporting better than expected operational revenue in the first quarter, driven in particular by the performance of its Reward Gateway platform. Danone, which announced organic growth of 4.1% in sales in the first quarter, which is above the consensus established by FactSet, gives itself 1.2%.
Excluding the flagship index, the automotive supplier Forvia gained 3.5% following strong order intake and organic growth in its turnover of 3.1% in the first quarter.
Sartorius Stedim Biotech, supplier to the pharmaceutical industry, fell 14% following results that were worse than expected, due in particular to weak Chinese demand.
The biggest increase in the SRD, the software publisher Planisware soared 29.3% to 20.7 euros for its first listing in Paris. The price was set at 16 euros per share, giving a market capitalization of around 1.1 billion euros.