After losing up to 1.5% in the early afternoon, around 7075 points, the Paris Bourse managed to make up some of its losses by the end of the day. At the final gong, the Paris index nevertheless lost 0.82% to 7129 points, penalized in particular by the sharp declines of Worldline (-5%) and Kering (-3.4%).

Over the past week, the CAC40 has lost 1.4%, but this has not prevented the index from gaining more than 10% since the start of the year.

Investors seem to be concerned about the lack of visibility regarding the Fed's tightening of monetary policy.

The trend moved up and down this week, before heaviness prevailed, reflecting questions linked to the latest statements by Fed boss Jerome Powell and John Williams (New York Fed), which reinforced fears of a faster rate hike by the Federal Reserve.

Despite more hawkish comments from the major central banks, investors continue to position themselves against the Fed by focusing on corporate results, which supports equities", analyze Liberum's strategists.

Thus, according to the analysts, the medium- to long-term trend remains positive, and the current weakness only represents a temporary loss of momentum, with no real signs of a turnaround.

"At the start of this year, market sentiment is (...) more optimistic than at the beginning of autumn 2022", emphasizes Geoffroy Goenen, head of European equities at Candriam.

On the statistics front, consumer confidence in the US improved more than expected, rising from 64.9 in January to 66.4 in February, according to the preliminary results of the monthly survey conducted by the University of Michigan.
The sub-index measuring consumers' judgment of their current situation jumped to 72.6 from 68.4 the previous month.

In addition, the UK reported a stagnation of its GDP in the fourth quarter of 2022 (compared with the third quarter, which showed a decline of -0.2%), according to the first estimate from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This stabilization thus enables the British economy to avoid entering a recession (characterized by at least two consecutive quarters of falling GDP).

On the bond front, the previous day's gains were wiped out as our OATs posted a yield up +7 Pts to 2.83%, Bunds +6 Pts to 2.370%, Italian BTPs +85 Pts to 4.214%.

Across the Atlantic, T-Bonds consolidated at the end of the week, down +4pts to 3.723%, with the '6-month' above 4.924% (i.e. almost 125pts of yield curve inversion) and the '1-year' at 4.885%.

In company news, L'Oréal (-0.8%) last night reported sales of 38.26 billion euros for 2022, up 10.9% like-for-like on the previous year. Net EPS amounted to 11.26 euros, up 27.6%.

Also last night, Lacroix reported sales of 707.8 ME for the 2022 financial year, up 8.6% on a like-for-like basis compared with 2021, reflecting 'very good sales momentum in France and internationally, and rebilling to offset higher electronic component procurement costs'.

This morning, Savencia Fromage & Dairy reported sales growth of 16.8% to 6.55 billion euros for 2022, almost entirely due to organic growth driven by non-cheese dairy products.

Bouygues Telecom announced that it had been ordered by the Paris Commercial Court to pay 308 million euros in damages to Free Mobile, in a dispute over former bundled offers by the Bouygues subsidiary.

Delta Plus Group has announced sales growth of 22.1% for 2022, reaching a record level of 420.2 million euros, and has thus confirmed its organic growth outlook (+2.9%).

Finally, Orange, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica and Vodafone are to form a joint venture to implement a digital marketing technology platform in Europe.


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