The Paris Stock Exchange fell sharply on Monday (-1.88%), at the start of a week when the markets will once again focus their attention on central banks and while the price of gas in Europe continues to climb.
The CAC 40 index lost 120.41 points to 6,376.81 points around 10:20 a.m., after ending down on Friday (-0.94%), also breaking a series of six weekly gains.
The euro fell back below parity with a dollar boosted by the US central bank (Fed) shortly before 10:20 a.m.
For several sessions, investors have been revising their anticipation of a more gentle rise in key central bank rates in the future, a theory that was one of the driving forces behind the rise in the markets during the summer.
“All eyes are on the annual Jackson Hole meeting this week (the high mass of central banks in the United States), under the leadership of the Fed”, the American Central Bank. This year, the event could have a greater influence than usual on investor sentiment,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, analyst at Swissquote.
“Investors don’t really know which way the market is going to go,” summarizes Ms. Ozkardeskaya.
In Europe, gas prices continued to rise in response to the announcement on Friday of the interruption of Russian deliveries by the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline for three days – from August 31 to September 2 – for “maintenance” reasons according to the Russian gas giant Gazprom.
This added tension to the price of European natural gas: on the Dutch TTF market, which is a reference, the price, which had broken a record at the close on Friday, soared again to reach 282.495 euros per megawatt hour (+15.52 %) around 10:15 a.m.
In France, some of the customers of the Spanish electricity supplier Iberdrola have been invited to “supply themselves elsewhere” to benefit from regulated energy sale tariffs, and thus avoid seeing prices “double or triple” during automatic contract renewal.
Markets skeptical about TF1 and M6
Bouygues (-1.38% to 30.03 euros per share around 10 a.m.) sent a series of commitments to the Competition Authority (ADLC) with RTL Group to save the merger project between TF1 (-2, 09% 6.33 euros) and M6 (-0.96% to 12.44 euros), in particular about the advertising activity.
Real estate companies, automobiles and banks at the bottom of the basket
The values of the bank, the automobile and the industry, sectors exposed on the markets to the fears of recession or the increases in the key rates of the central banks, fell sharply.
Unibail lost 3.87% to 53.94 euros around 10:15 a.m., on the car side, Stellantis lost 3.41% (13.95 euros) and Renault 3.39% (28.32 euros) while ArcelorMittal sank by 3 .73% (22.38 euros).
The banks also showed losses: Société Générale yielded 3.31% to 21.78 euros and BNP Paribas 2.87% to 46.29 euros.
Engie draws its pin
The French energy giant took 0.26% to 12.97 euros per share around 10:10 a.m., driven by the sharp rise in gas prices in Europe. It was one of the only two values in the green on the CAC 40 with Sanofi (+0.99% to 82.47 euros).
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