The Paris stock market is a little heavier, with the CAC40 losing between -0.3 and -0.4% to 7,255 points... in insignificant volumes, with only 1.2 billion euros traded in 8 hours of trading.
Investors are cautious in every sense of the word, two days ahead of the ECB's major meeting scheduled for Thursday.

The European stock markets were mixed on Tuesday, and were down in the Eurozone: +0.4% in London, but -0.6% in Frankfurt, which was hit by an -8.1 point drop in the 'ZEW' 'current situation' index to -79.4.
But the outlook sub-index recovered by 0.9 points to -11.4.

Wall Street, for its part - and on the eve of the 'CPI'- failed to validate any directional signal, with -0.1% on the Dow Jones, -0.4% on the S&P500 and -0.6% on the Nasdaq.

On the oil market, production cuts by several OPEC+ countries, in particular Saudi Arabia and Russia, outweighed fears of a global economic slowdown, resulting in a surge in prices.
Brent crude rose by 1.6% to pass the $92/barrel mark, while US light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) soared by +2% to $89.1, a new annual record.

In the space of three months, oil prices have soared by more than 33%, a surge which specialists predict will not abate in the short term.

"A barrel at $100 is now a credible scenario before the end of the year", explains DeftHedge, a specialist in currency and commodity risk management for companies, citing both cyclical and structural factors.

The bond markets are trying to digest the inflationary impact of record-breaking oil prices, which are set to accelerate further: OATs and Bunds are managing to stabilize at 3.175% and 2.635% respectively, while T-Bonds are stretching by a margin of +0.4pts to 4.295%, which is rather reassuring.

In the news from French companies, Interparfums reported a 43% increase in net income (group share) to 77.6 million euros for the first half of 2023, and a 3.3-point improvement in operating margin to 25.8%, on sales up 24% to 396.1 million.

Fnac Darty announced on Tuesday the launch of a senior bond offering maturing in 2029 for a total amount of 300 million euros in order to refinance itself.

Voltalia announced the signature, by its subsidiary Helexia, of a contract with Prime Energy, one of Brazil's largest electricity traders, for the supply of 46 megawatts of photovoltaic energy over a 20-year period.
TotalEnergies announced that the €1.99/liter cap at all its service stations in France will be extended beyond the end of 2023, 'as long as prices remain high'.

SES-imagotag jumps 9% in Paris, the day after the publication of first-half 2023 results which 'reflect a very strong operating performance' according to Stifel, which remains 'buy' on the stock.


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