The Paris Bourse gained 0.41% this evening, to 8184 points, driven in particular by Kering (+3.1%), BNP Paribas (+2.9%) and Renault (+2.6%).

From a tactical point of view, we may be witnessing a bit of quarterly balance sheet dressing this Tuesday: managers are getting rid of "lame ducks" (Orpéa, Euroapi are losing between -5 and -8%) and strengthening on the banking side (in Paris) and the best-performing "technos" on the Nasdaq.

On the statistics front, investors have just taken note of the US durable goods order figures. These showed an increase of 1.4% last month on the previous month, following a sequential fall of 6.9% in January (revised from an initial estimate of 6.1%).

However, excluding the usually erratic transportation sector, where orders rebounded by 3.3% in February, US durable goods orders rose by just 0.5% over the period.

The markets also took note of the Conference Board's consumer confidence index. This deteriorated very slightly in March: the confidence index calculated by the employers' organization came to 104.7 this month, compared with 104.8 in February.

While the consumer judgment component measuring the current situation improved to 151, compared with 147.6 last month, the expectations component fell sharply to 73.8 from 76.3 in February.

Other important indicators will follow, such as the latest estimate of fourth-quarter US GDP due on Thursday, but the highlight of the week will be February's household income and expenditure statistics.

This publication, whose price component is the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation, will help refine forecasts for the Fed's forthcoming decisions.

In Europe this time, investors this morning learned of France's public deficit for the full year 2023. This stands at 154 billion euros, or 5.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), after 4.8% in 2022 and 6.6% in 2021, according to data released this morning by Insee.

Revenues rose by just 2% last year (after +7.4% in 2022), as the rate of compulsory deductions fell to 43.5% of GDP, while spending increased by 3.7% (after +4% in 2022).

The recent rise in indices has rekindled doubts among some investors about the valuation levels of equities, which some analysts are describing as "overvalued" or even consistent with the formation of a "bubble".

Bond markets failed to recover what they had lost the previous day, with yields easing by -1.5Pt on Bunds (2.3580%) and OATs (2.8370%), but symmetrically tightening by +1.2Pt on US T-Bonds to 4.2620%.

Brent crude oil remained virtually unchanged at $86.65 a barrel in London, with the dollar perfectly unchanged at $1.0835/EUR.

In French company news, Air France-KLM (+4%) announces that it has redeemed, at the request of bondholders, around 452 million euros of the 500 million bonds convertible into new shares and/or exchangeable for existing shares (OCEANE) due March 25, 2026.

TotalEnergies announces that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (SINOPEC) to jointly develop a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production unit at a SINOPEC refinery in China.

Edenred announces the signature of a partnership with IP Gruppo api, an Italian fuel and mobility solutions group, from which it will acquire its entire energy card business, with a portfolio of around 50,000 B2B customers.

Finally, Rubis is up more than 12% today as Oddo BHF has raised its recommendation on the stock from 'neutral' to 'outperform', with a price target raised from 31 to 36 euros.


Copyright (c) 2024 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.