Focused on corporate publications, investors barely reacted to the surprise contraction of 1.4% of GDP in the United States in the first quarter, in the first approach, against an increase of 1% expected. If the statistics should hardly deviate the Fed from its new monetary orientation, a tightening of 0.75 basis point seems excluded. Closer to home, inflation reached a new record high of 7.8% over one year in Germany in the first estimate for April.
Bernstein analysts called Europe’s first-quarter earnings season robust, adding that 61% of companies reporting so far beat expectations. Like yesterday, automotive and technology stocks are driving the market. The good surprise reserved by Meta is 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.
Around 3 p.m., the Bedroom 40 increased by 1.02% to 6,510.90 points in a business volume of 1.35 billion euros. The contracts future on American indices appreciated by 0.7% for the Dow Jones and by 1.7% for the Nasdaq 100. better than expected results and announced growth in the number of daily users of the social network that exceeded expectations.
The euro continues to slide against the dollar
Volatility remains high in financial markets due to 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 “zero -Covid” which paralyzes several major 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 less than 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 4%. 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 4.5% 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 (+7%), Worldline (+5.7%) and STMicroelectronics (+2.1%).
Second weighting of the Cac 40, TotalEnergies wins 4.2%. 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 15.6%. 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 11.5% 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.