The Paris Bourse ended the day down 0.46%, at 7339 points. Until mid-afternoon, the Paris index had been trading in positive territory at around 7380 points (+0.2%), but the 4pm speech by Fed chief Jerome Powell sent the share price into a tailspin.

The Fed boss confirmed that rates would be kept high for a fairly long period, with the labor market remaining "tight" and household consumption "robust", and even sustained. ...

While there was nothing really new in these remarks, they did bury the hopes of the most optimistic analysts, and ultimately led to a decline in the US indices, with -1% on the Dow Jones and S&P500 and -0.8% on the Nasdaq.

With regard to the next FOMC meeting on March 22: bets on a 0.25Pts hike are in the majority (around 70%), but there are also 55% of experts betting on 4 rate hikes between now and the summer (including the March meeting), compared with just 2 rate hikes 5 weeks ago.

On the statistics front, against all expectations, German industrial orders rose in January, confirming the resilience of Europe's leading economy to the current slowdown in activity.

Following a 3.4% increase in December (revised from +3.2% previously), industrial orders rose by 1% in seasonally-adjusted terms, according to data from Destatis, the Federal Statistical Office.

On the fixed-income market, sovereign bond yields remain volatile: after Monday's "saloon door" session and a re-test of the year's worst levels at the end of the session, a small improvement is taking shape with OATs easing -2.4pts to 3.200%, Bunds erasing -2.6pts to 2.700%, Italian BTPs on the other hand falling -7pts to 4.4700% to return almost stable at 4.55%.

U.S. 10-year yields eased by a marginal -1.5 pts to 3.9670%, while 2-year yields were 100 pts higher at 4.962%.
On the currency front, the dollar recovered by almost 1% against the euro, to $1.058 to the euro. Brent crude oil is consolidating (-2.7%) and is now trading at $83.9 a barrel.

In other stock news, Neoen today announced the launch of a capital increase with preferential subscription rights (DPS) of around 750 million euros to increase its installed capacity by 50%, while stepping up its investments in storage.

The European Commission announced that it had approved the creation of a joint venture between Renault and Minth Group Limited, a specialist in the manufacture of car parts domiciled in the Cayman Islands. The joint venture will be based in France, and will supply battery shells for electric cars in Belgium, France and the UK.

Dassault has announced that the first F4-standard Rafale has been delivered to the French Air Force's Centre d'Expertise Aérienne Militaire (CEAM) at air base 118, Mont-de-Marsan.

Somfy reports sales of 1.5 billion euros for fiscal year 2022, up 3.7% on the previous year (+1.6% on a like-for-like basis). Consolidated net income came to 238 million euros, down 8.1%.

Lastly, Airbus announced that it had delivered 46 aircraft to 34 customers and booked gross orders for 99 aircraft in February. Since the beginning of the year, the aircraft manufacturer has delivered a total of 66 aircraft to 42 customers.


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