The Paris Bourse ended the session down 0.89%, at 7588 points, penalized by the -10.3% plunge in Dassault Systèmes, the -9.2% fall in BNP-Paribas and the -4.1% fall in Sanofi.

Last night, as anticipated by the markets, the Fed opted for the status quo on rates, before Jerome Powell's speech more clearly dashed hopes of monetary easing as early as March.

The Fed is confirming its pivot, but doesn't want to make the mistake of cutting rates too quickly", says Bastien Drut, Head of Strategy and Economic Research at CPR AM.

According to FedWatch, only 35% of traders now anticipate a rate cut in March, compared with 73% a month ago.

While the tech giants' releases have so far been coolly received, reinforcing investors' pessimism, the announcements from Apple, Amazon and Meta will be of particular importance this evening.

Meanwhile, on the statistics front, it's been a busy day: non-farm productivity rose by 3.2% in the US in the fourth quarter of 2023 at an annualized rate, according to the Labor Department's preliminary estimate, following a 4.9% rise in the previous quarter.

A 0.4% increase in the number of hours worked and a 3.7% rise in hourly wages should also be noted: non-farm unit labor costs in the USA rose by 0.5% in the last quarter of 2023.

In addition, the US manufacturing sector saw its activity pick up in January, according to S&P Global, whose PMI index for the sector came in at 50.7 definitively in January (versus 50.3 in flash estimate), after 47.9 in December.

While production was penalized by longer lead times, new orders returned to growth, but cost inflation accelerated to its highest rate for nine months.

The Labor Department announced 224,000 new jobless claims in the USA for the week of January 22, up 9,000 on the previous week's revised figure (215,000 instead of the 214,000 initially announced).

In France, the PMI HCOB buyers' index for manufacturing industry, produced by S&P Global, rose from 42.1 in December to 43.1 in January, continuing to signal a sharp deterioration in the sector's economic situation.

The HCOB PMI index for the eurozone manufacturing industry climbed from 44.4 in December to 46.6 in January, its highest level for ten months, signalling a slowdown in the sector's contraction for the third consecutive month.

Finally, the eurozone's annual inflation rate came in at 2.8% in January 2024, down slightly from 2.9% in December 2023, according to a flash estimate published by Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office.

The bond markets, which had eased sharply the previous day, continued their downward trend, with T-Bonds down 14 basis points to 3.82%.
On the European Treasury bond side, Bunds eased 11 basis points to 2.12%, while OATs eased 9 basis points to 2.63%.
The dollar is holding steady against the euro at around $1.085/euro (+0.3%).

Brent crude is down 0.6% at around $81.2 a barrel.

Lastly, in news from French companies, Dassault Systèmes (-10.3%) reported non-IFRS EPS of 1.20 euro for 2023, up 12% at constant exchange rates, "i.e. a doubling in five years as initially announced", despite an adjusted operating margin down one point to 32.4%.

BNP Paribas (-9.2%) reports distributable income for 2023 of 11.2 billion euros, up 10.2% and in line with its target, with the Group highlighting revenue growth, a positive jaws effect and a low cost of risk.

Kaufman & Broad reports a 23% increase in net income (group share) to 60.2 million euros for 2023, with recurring operating margin up 0.3 points to 7.8% and total sales up 7% to 1.41 billion (excl. VAT).

Canal+ confirms that it has submitted to MultiChoice's Board of Directors a letter containing a non-binding indicative offer to acquire all the issued ordinary shares of MultiChoice that it does not already hold.

US biotech company Graviton Bioscience announced on Thursday a strategic investment from French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi.


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