The Paris stock market is hovering around its equilibrium level of 8150 points this morning, despite Carrefour's 4.3% fall.
Investors remain cautious ahead of the publication of two indicators on the US economy.

This afternoon, the market will take note of the Conference Board's durable goods orders and consumer confidence figures, which will give a first glimpse of US household morale.

Other important indicators will follow, such as the latest estimate of US fourth-quarter GDP due on Thursday, but the highlight of the week will be the February household income and expenditure statistics.

This publication, whose price component is the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation, will help refine forecasts for the Fed's forthcoming decisions.

The mood could nevertheless be one of pause as we approach the Easter long weekend and the end of the first quarter, which saw all the world's major stock markets hit closing records at the same time.

Meanwhile, this morning investors learned of France's public deficit for the full year 2023. This stands at 154 billion euros, or 5.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), after 4.8% in 2022 and 6.6% in 2021, according to data released this morning by Insee.

Revenues rose by just 2% last year (after +7.4% in 2022), as the rate of compulsory deductions fell to 43.5% of GDP, while spending increased by 3.7% (after +4% in 2022).

The recent rise in indices has rekindled doubts among some investors about the valuation levels of equities, which some analysts describe as 'overvalued', or even consistent with the formation of a 'bubble'.

From a stock market point of view, we'll certainly need to take a breather in the short term after the significant gains of the first quarter", says Christopher Dembik, Investment Strategy Consultant at Pictet.

Since January 1, the Paris index has risen by over 8%.

"It's worth noting that the CAC 40 is almost on a par with the S&P 500 in terms of performance", continues Christopher Dembik. That's rare enough to mention," concludes the strategist.

In other French company news, Air France-KLM has announced that, at the request of bondholders, it has redeemed around 452 million euros of the 500 million bonds convertible into new shares and/or exchangeable for existing shares (OCEANE) due March 25, 2026.

TotalEnergies announces that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (SINOPEC) to jointly develop a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production unit at a SINOPEC refinery in China.

Edenred announces the signature of a partnership with IP Gruppo api, an Italian fuel and mobility solutions group, from which it will acquire its entire energy card business, with a portfolio of around 50,000 B2B customers.

Copyright (c) 2024 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.