The control room of Euronext, the company that manages the Paris Stock Exchange (AFP / ERIC PIERMONT)
The Paris Stock Exchange was almost stable (-0.03%) on Friday morning, granting itself a session of respite after having exceeded the 7,900 point mark the day before for the first time in its history.
The flagship CAC 40 index lost 2.31 points to 7,909.29 points around 9:50 a.m.
On Thursday, it finished up sharply by 1.27%. His new session record now stands at 7,930.68 points.
The Frankfurt Dax also recorded new records on Thursday, as did the Dow Jones and S&P 500 indices on Wall Street, as well as the Nikkei in Tokyo.
This euphoria was driven by the record results and better than expected from Nvidia, an American giant of electronic chips used in particular in artificial intelligence.
After a jump of more than 16%, the market capitalization of Nvidia swelled in one session by more than 200 billion dollars, to reach 1,940 billion dollars. Nvidia thus once again becomes, as in mid-February, the third largest market capitalization in New York, behind the leading duo Apple-Microsoft.
Xavier Chapard, from the LBPAM research and strategy team, finds it “difficult to fundamentally justify” Nvidia’s ripple effect “on the rest of global stocks, because the impact of generative AI on the whole of the economy will take time to materialize.
“It therefore comes mainly from the increase in risk appetite, which creates a risk of consolidation in the short term,” he believes.
For analysts at Natixis CIB Research, stock indices are also driven by “a buoyant macroeconomic environment, as confirmed by the indicators published this Thursday, despite rising long-term rates.”
In terms of monetary policy, three governors of the Federal Reserve (Fed), the American central bank, continued Thursday to plead for patience before starting to lower rates, one of them even saying that he wants to observe the inflation figures for “at least a few more months”.
Following these statements, the markets have further reduced their forecasts for the extent of rate cuts in 2024.
On the bond market, the interest rate on the ten-year French State loan stood at 2.94% compared to 2.91% the day before.
Fnac-Darty
The Fnac-Darty group reported on Thursday a further slight decline in its sales in 2023, to 7.87 billion euros (-0.9%), while ending the year with a net profit of 50 million euros, compared to 32 million losses in 2022. Its action climbed 8.54% to 26.68 euros.
Euronext CAC40