The Paris stock market is down just 0.5% (despite the -10% plunge of Dassault Systèmes and -7.5% of BNP-Paribas) and is limiting the damage, with the CAC40 losing as much as -0.8% this morning: the CAC40 is trying to cling on to the 7,600Pts mark.600Pts.

The Euro-Stoxx50 even returned to the green, at 4,650Pts, while Wall Street erased part of its previous day's losses, with the S&P500 recovering between +0.4 and +0.5%, and the Nasdaq +0.7% (after -2.2% on Wednesday evening).

Wall Street had been hit by the Fed's announcement last night that it would take its time and not rush into rate cuts.

Although the central bank kept rates unchanged, as expected, Jerome Powell's speech dashed hopes of monetary easing as early as March.

The Fed is confirming its pivot, but does not want to make the mistake of cutting rates too quickly", says Bastien Drut, Head of Strategy and Economic Research at CPR AM.

As a result, only 35% of traders are anticipating a rate cut in March, according to FedWatch, compared with 73% a month ago.

The VIX volatility index surged yesterday afternoon in New York to 14.3, its highest level since mid-January, i.e. during the correction at the start of the year... but the 'volat' is down -4% this Thursday.
While the tech giants' releases have so far been coolly received, reinforcing investors' pessimism, the announcements from Apple, Amazon and Meta will be of particular importance this evening.

Meanwhile, on the statistics front, it's a busy day:
non-farm productivity in the US rose by 3.2% at an annualized rate in Q4 2023, according to the Labor Department's preliminary estimate, following a 4.9% increase in the previous quarter.
A 0.4% increase in the number of hours worked and a 3.7% rise in hourly wages should be noted: non-farm unit labor costs in the USA rose by 0.5% in the last quarter of 2023.

The US manufacturing sector saw its activity pick up in January, according to S&P Global, whose PMI index for the sector came in at 50.7 for the month, compared with 50.3 in the flash estimate and 47.9 in December.

While production was penalized by longer lead times, new orders returned to growth, but cost inflation accelerated to its highest rate for nine months

The Labor Department announced 224,000 new jobless claims in the US for the week of January 22, up 9,000 on the previous week's revised figure (215,000 instead of the 214,000 initially announced).

In Europe, the PMI HCOB buyers' index for the French manufacturing industry, produced by S&P Global, was released this morning: it rose from 42.1 in December to 43.1 in January, but continued to signal a sharp deterioration in the sector's economic situation.

The HCOB PMI index for the eurozone manufacturing industry, meanwhile, climbed from 44.4 in December to 46.6 in January, its highest level for ten months, signalling a slowdown in the sector's contraction for a third consecutive month.

Lastly, the eurozone's annual inflation rate is estimated at 2.8% in January 2024, down slightly from 2.9% in December 2023, according to a flash estimate published by Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office.

Bond markets, which had eased sharply the previous day, continued their slide, with the T-Bond down 8 basis points to 3.884%, while the 30-year even fell 9 basis points to 4.1230%.
As for European Treasuries, Bonds eased by -7pts to 2.168%, OATs by -5pts to 2.672% and Italian BTPs by -8pts to 3.725%.

With the prospect of rate cuts in the US postponed, the dollar continues to show strength against the euro, remaining unchanged at $1.0820/euro.
Brent crude is down 0.3%, at around $81.5 a barrel.

Lastly, in news from French companies, Dassault Systèmes (-10%) reported non-IFRS EPS of 1.20 euro for 2023, up 12% at constant exchange rates, "i.e. a doubling in five years as initially announced", despite an adjusted operating margin down one point to 32.4%.

BNP Paribas (-6.5%) reports distributable income for 2023 of 11.2 billion euros, up 10.2% and in line with its target, with the Group highlighting revenue growth, a positive jaws effect and a low cost of risk.

Kaufman & Broad reports a 23% increase in net income (group share) to 60.2 million euros for 2023, with recurring operating margin up 0.3 points to 7.8% and total sales up 7% to 1.41 billion (excl. VAT).

Canal+ confirms that it has submitted to the Board of Directors of MultiChoice a letter containing a non-binding indicative offer to acquire all the issued ordinary shares of MultiChoice that it does not already hold.


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