The Paris stock market is firmly back on track, led by LVMH (+2.2%), Europe's largest capitalization, which has smashed a new all-time record (and taken Kering in its wake).

The CAC40 gained 1%, around 6936 points (+7% in 7 sessions), after peaking at 6,946.
The Euro-Stoxx50 also gained more than 1%, topping the 4,100 mark, while Wall Street was up slightly, with the Dow Jones up 0.2%, the S&P500 up 0.4% and the Nasdaq up 0.5%.

If investors had been more cautious yesterday, they were relieved by the fact that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell refrained from commenting on inflation, the recession or current monetary policy.

The latest inflation figures, due out tomorrow, may well reinforce their view that monetary policy will be more accommodating from 2023, accompanied by a "soft landing" for the economy.

Economists are hoping for a further slowdown in US inflation (towards 6.5 or 6.6%), which had reached 7.1% in November, its lowest level in almost a year.

Another date to watch: the big banks JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi and Wells Fargo will kick off the quarterly earnings season on Friday.

Earnings of companies listed on the S&P 500 index are expected to fall by 4.1% in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to FactSet estimates, and pleasant surprises could once again be a bullish factor.

There were few figures on today's agenda on Wednesday: data published by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) showed that crude oil inventories stood at 439.6 million barrels in the week to January 2 in the USA, up 19 million barrels on the previous week.

Inventories of distillates - including heating oil - were down (-1.1 million barrels), while gasoline stocks were up by 4.1 million barrels on the previous week.

Lastly, the EIA reports that refineries operated at 84.1% of their operating capacity during the same week, with average production of 8.5 million barrels/day.
Oil is up sharply in London (ICE) and on the NYMEX, gaining +2.2% to $81.5 and $76.7 respectively.
And the bond markets are not moved by this, as yields suddenly ease by -12pts on our OATs to 2.6780% and -11pts on Bunds to 2.19%, followed by -17pts on Italian BTPs to 4.04%.
The improvement is a little more timid on US T-Bonds at 4.575% (-4.5Pts).

In corporate news, LVMH (+2.2% at 773E) announced the appointment of Pietro Beccari, who has headed Christian Dior Couture since 2018, as CEO of Louis Vuitton, succeeding Michael Burke who will take up new duties directly with the luxury group's CEO, Bernard Arnault.

Dassault Aviation announced yesterday that its Mérignac plant had delivered the F3R-standard Rafale B359 to the Direction Générale de l'Armement on December 29, 2022. This event marks the resumption of Rafale deliveries to France after a four-year interruption for budgetary reasons", says Dassault.

Airbus is in preliminary negotiations with Atos (+6.6% to 12.3E) to take a stake of up to 29.9% in Evidian, according to Les Echos. The Orange group is also said to be interested, according to the daily.

Lastly, yacht manufacturer Fountaine Pajot reports that its order book, covering both the 2022-23 financial year and a large part of the years to follow, enables it to forecast growth for 2022-23 of between +10% and +15%.

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