On Thursday, the CAC40 recorded a 4th consecutive session of consolidation, continuing its downward trajectory. Although the decline was limited (-0.33% to 7,229 points), the Parisian index has already shed nearly 3.4% since the start of the week.

The session was punctuated by the release of several statistics: in the United States, 1st quarter GDP growth came in at +1.3% according to the Commerce Department, which had announced a rate of 1.1% in its very first estimate a month ago.

On the other hand, new home sales promises were disappointingly flat in April in the US, whereas they had been expected to rise by 0.5% (after 5.2% in March).

Still on the statistics front, the business climate in France darkened in May for the third month running, with the Insee indicator dropping two points to its long-term average of 100. This is its lowest level since April 2021.

Lastly, investors took note of the new estimate of Germany's Q1 GDP.
This fell by 0.3% compared with Q4 2022, according to the new Destatis volume and CVS-CJO data, whereas stability had initially been announced.

It should be noted that news from the world of finance continues to be marked by the issue of raising the US debt ceiling. On this subject, Deutsche Bank notes that 'the latest news was not particularly promising, with House Speaker McCarthy telling reporters that there were a number of issues where negotiators were still far apart'.

The German bank also points out that, after the US markets closed, credit rating agency Fitch placed the US rating on negative watch, even though its basic scenario remains that an agreement will be reached.

We remain constructive on an agreement reached in time to avoid a default on US debt, even if we expect the soap opera to continue in the very short term", also judged Libby Cantrill, Head of Public Policy at PIMCO.

On the bond market, US T-Bonds deteriorated by 6 basis points after GDP, and the yield on the 10-year bond climbed from 3.715% to 3.776%.
The heaviness was a little less pronounced in Europe, where Bunds and OATs posted +3.3 basis points to 2.485% and 3.035% respectively.

The situation remains critical on the UK fixed-income market, with Gilts seeing their yields soar +20pts to 4.41% (for the record, Italian BTPs are unchanged at 4.3200%), repeating their worst levels since the crisis at the end of September, which led to the BoE's emergency intervention and Liz Truss's resignation.

In other stock news, environmental services group Derichebourg (-7%) reported a 39.1% drop in net income for the first half of 2022-23, on sales that contracted by 12.7%.

For its part, Pierre & Vacances reported a 28% year-on-year improvement in half-year adjusted EBITDA, enabling it to confirm the increase in its financial forecasts for the 2022-23 financial year, announced in April.

Eurazeo, accompanied by Trocadero Capital Partners and Bpifrance, announces a recent investment in Eowin, to pursue and accelerate the development of this document management services company for industry.

Alstom announces that it has signed a contract with the Romanian municipality of Cluj-Napoca, in Transylvania, for the construction of line 1 of the city's metro, as part of a consortium with public works companies Gulermak and Arcada.

Finally, Figeac Aéro reports sales growth of 21.1% to 341.4 million euros for its full 2022-23 financial year (ending March), with organic growth of 14%, in line with its annual targets.


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