After a hesitant morning, the Paris stock market rallied in the second half of the session: at the final gong, the Paris index was up 0.68%, at 6932 points, with the help of Worldline (+3%), Teleperformance (+2.8%) and Engie (+2.3%).

Logically, trading remained modest on this All Saints' Day (a public holiday in France, Italy, Spain and other European countries), with less than 2.5 billion euros traded since the opening.

On the statistics front, the US private sector generated just 113,000 new jobs in October, according to the monthly survey published this Wednesday by ADP, a specialist in human resources management outsourcing.

In addition, the leading index of manufacturing activity, the ISM, contracted for the 12th consecutive month in the US in October, with the rate of decline even faster than the previous month, to 46.7 last month from 49 (the ISM was expected to remain unchanged).

The sharpest declines were in the sub-indices measuring new orders (down from 49.2 to 45.5) and employment (46.8 vs. 51.2), both of which fell below the 50-point mark separating contraction and growth in activity.

The picture is not much different for the S&P Global manufacturing PMI, which finally came in at 50 for the past month, in line with its flash estimate and after 49.8 for September.

It's also a busy day for earnings, with publications from Qualcomm, Mondelez, PayPal, Estee Lauder, Kraft Heinz, Electronic Arts and DuPont.

The high point of the session will come at 7pm, when the FED will publish its monetary policy statement at the close of the FOMC meeting which began yesterday: Jerome Powell will speak at a press conference scheduled for around 30 minutes later.

The Federal Reserve is not expected to change its key interest rates, but investors are expecting the institution to provide valuable clues as to the evolution of its strategy over the coming months.

On the oil front, crude prices retreated, with the break of $88 validated on 'Brent' with -1.7% at $86 in London (after an initial decline of -2% to $85.8).

No notable change in weekly US crude oil inventories: data published by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) showed that US crude oil inventories stood at 421.9 million barrels for the week ending October 23, marking a modest increase of 0.8 million barrels on the previous week.

In news from French companies, Airbus reports a firm order from Air Niugini, the national airline of Papua New Guinea, for six A220-100s as part of its fleet modernization program. In addition, it will acquire three A220-300s and two A220-100s from third-party leasing companies.

Schneider Electric announces that, following the agreement signed on October 27, 2022, it has now finalized the previously announced sale of its industrial sensors business, Telemecanique Sensors, to YAGEO.

Finally, Stellantis (+1.8%) announced on Wednesday the formation of a new management team in China, with the stated aim of ensuring the successful execution of its strategic partnership with electric car manufacturer Leapmotor, in which it now holds a 20% stake.

Copyright (c) 2023 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.