Mission accomplished: the final session of the week, month and quarter ended with a firework display of absolute records, but there is still a little suspense as to whether the CAC40 will finish in the green.

The CAC tested the long-term target of 8,250 points (which should have been reached by the end of the year, according to early January forecasts).250 points (which should have been reached by the end of the year at best, according to early January forecasts), the CAC40 'GR' (including dividends) registered the symbolic 25,000Pts mark, compared with 20,500 at the end of October 2023... before falling back below 24,900.
The Euro-Stoxx50 unsurprisingly broke through 5,100 (+12.8% year-on-year), but only retained a 0.1% gain, with the DAX40 once again gravitating above 18.500.
Wall Street looks set for a record-breaking run if the opening scores are confirmed this evening, with the Dow Jones at 39,850 (+0.2%) and the S&P500 at 5,255 (+0.15%)... but the Nasdaq is struggling a little and just holding its own.
Ahead of the long Easter weekend - Western markets close up store this evening, only to reopen on Monday for Wall Street and Tuesday for European markets - investors were treated to the latest estimate of US GDP growth for the 4th quarter: revised upwards by +0.2% to 3.4% annualized, according to a third estimate from the Commerce Department.
Growth in the world's leading economy is therefore slower than the 4.9% recorded in the third quarter (Jefferies was expecting the previous estimate to be confirmed).

This revision mainly reflects upward revisions to consumer spending and non-residential fixed investment, which were partly offset by a downward revision to investment in private inventories.

The Labor Department announced 210.000 new US jobless claims for the past week, down by 2,000 on the previous week's revised figure (212,000 instead of 210,000).

The four-week moving average - more representative of the underlying trend - came in at 211,000, down by 750 on the previous week's revised average.

Finally, the number of people receiving regular benefits rose by 24.000 to 1,819,000 in the week ending March 16, the most recent period available for this statistic.

The University of Michigan's consumer confidence index finally improved in March, according to the final results of the University of Michigan's monthly survey published on Thursday.

The confidence index calculated on the basis of this survey of households rose to 79.4, instead of the 76.5 announced in the preliminary version, after 76.9 in February.

The component measuring consumers' assessment of their current situation in particular rose to 82.5 from 79.4 in February, while the sub-index measuring their expectations rose to 77.4 from 75.2 last month.

These results show above all a deterioration in consumers' inflation expectations one year ahead, now estimated at 2.9% instead of 3% last month.

Tomorrow, with the markets closed, the US PCE index could also allay or reinforce concerns about the reawakening of inflation.

While the New York Stock Exchange will reopen on Monday, European stock markets will remain closed until Tuesday morning.

In this wait-and-see climate before the Easter weekend, and on the eve of a major US statistic, T-Bonds are stabilizing at 4.198%, while Bunds and our OATs are tightening by +2.5pts to 2.807%; the euro is retreating slightly against the greenback, by -0.15% to $1.079/E (-0.1%) and Brent crude oil (+1.2%) ends the quarter at its zenith at $87.4 in London.

In company news, Trigano posted sales for the first half of 2023-24 up 18.4% at nearly 1.91 billion euros, with second-quarter sales (+17.8%) confirming the trend observed since the beginning of the year.

Following on from its announcement of the previous day, Renault Group reports that it has sold 99,132,100 Nissan shares to Nissan, representing around 2.5% of the Japanese company's capital, resulting in a positive cash flow of 358 million euros.

For 2023, Viel & Cie reports a 33.4% increase in net income (group share) to 98.1 million euros, and a 25.8% increase in operating income (including associates) to 172.1 million.

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