The Paris stock market ended the session with a gain of 1.42%, at 7112 points, benefiting in particular from rebounds by Société Générale (+4.3%), Axa (+4.1%) and BNP Paribas (+4.1%) amid easing concerns about the health of the global financial system.

The risk-on mood is back, as evidenced by the sharp fall in bond markets (OATs are down +15 to +16 basis points, Bunds +18 basis points to 2.28%... and US T-Bonds +11 basis points to 3.585%).

April's stock market performance is already positive by +3%, wiping out half the ground lost in March in 48 hours, with annual performance once again exceeding +10%.
The rebound exceeds +5% in 24 hours (and in 12 hours of continuous trading), with the CAC40 back to within 4% of its historic highs of March 6.

The day's rebound was not specifically linked to the rejection of the motion of censure against the 64-year pension law (the Euro-Stoxx50 posted the same gain as the CAC): no reaction from OATs or CAC40 futures, so no "relief", even though the government said it feared a downgrading of French debt by the rating agencies in the event of rejection.

On Wall Street, gains remained modest (+0.5%) despite hopes of a resolution to the "Fist Republic" problem: the FED is said to be willing to finance the guarantee of all deposits in US regional banks, thus removing a major source of stress (risk of bank-run and cascading bankruptcies).

On the stats front, a surprise in the US was the surge in second-hand home resales, up 14.5% in February (to 4.58 million units, according to the NAR), against expectations of +5.5%: a surge that may have been due to a one-off easing of rates in January, which motivated buyers last month.
This rebound puts an end to 12 consecutive months of decline: it essentially reflects the market's dynamism on the country's West Coast.

In detail, sales rose by 4% in the Northeast and 13.5% in the Midwest, with gains of 15.9% and 19.4% respectively in the South (Florida) and West (California).
The median house price edged back 0.2% year-on-year to $363,000.

In Europe, new car sales rebounded by +12.2% in February: the base effect is favourable and will be even more so in March, since everything had frozen in March 2022 with the start of the war in Ukraine.

The ZEW barometer of German business sentiment fell more sharply than expected, to 13 from 28.1 last month.
ECB President Christine Lagarde assured us yesterday that 'financial tensions could temper demand and do some of the work that would otherwise have been done by restrictive monetary policy: without these tensions, we would have indicated that further rate hikes were necessary'.
In other words, the rate hike cycle may well be over, since a restrictive policy is no longer necessary in view of the already very tense financial conditions on the markets.

While growing fears about the banks have fuelled market volatility in recent days, investors are now awaiting announcements from the US Federal Reserve (Wednesday evening at 7pm), which will be followed by a press conference from its Chairman, Jerome Powell.

According to CME Group's FedWatch barometer, investors' estimated probability of a 25bp rate hike hovers around 77%, while only 23% of investors expect no change.

A 25bp rate hike by the Fed versus +50bp by the ECB weakens the Dollar against the Euro: it loses -0.5% towards $1.07750/E.... but the Dollar Index as a whole is down just -0.1%).

In company news, Mr.Bricolage shares gained nearly 2% in Paris following the announcement of a planned purchasing partnership with the UK's Kingfisher.

Air Liquide announces that it will invest around 60 million euros to modernize two air separation units (ASUs) that the French industrial group operates in the Tianjin industrial basin in China.

Colas announced on Tuesday that it is investing in French start-up XXII to accelerate the use of computer vision in artificial intelligence (AI).

Finally, Sopra Steria announced a conditional agreement to launch a public tender offer for all Ordina shares at a price of 5.75 euros per share (excluding the proposed dividend), representing a premium of 36% on the closing price on March 14.

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