The Paris stock market gained just 0.1% this morning, around 7,680 points. Earlier in the day, the Paris index had briefly surpassed 7,700 points, a historic first, before slipping back below this symbolic threshold.

Investors should limit risk-taking today, as the Fed will present the conclusions of its strategy meeting this evening after the Paris market closes.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will also hold a press conference later in the evening, a meeting that is traditionally closely followed by the markets, and all the more so at a time of uncertainty about the future of central bank monetary policies...

While the prospect of a 'status quo' is hardly in doubt, market participants will be trying to read between the lines and pick up any clues as to the pace and timing of rate cuts.

"The Federal Reserve is likely to put a clear end to hopes of a rate cut soon (March) and quickly", anticipates Emmanuel Auboyneau, associate manager at Amplegest.

According to him, 'Jerome Powell will try to calm things down, while keeping the door open for future meetings, depending on the economic data'.

In the meantime, investors this morning took note of a series of statistics, including a further year-on-year fall (-1.8%) in French industrial producer prices (PPI) in December, after -0.5% in November. Insee points out that PPI were virtually stable (+0.1% after +0.2% in November) excluding energy.

Also according to Insee (provisional estimate), consumer prices in France are set to rise by 3.1% year-on-year in January 2024, down significantly from 3.7% in December 2023.

Finally, the German economy contracted in the fourth quarter, according to a new estimate published by the Federal Statistical Office, with GDP down 0.3% in the last three months of the year compared with the previous quarter in seasonally-adjusted terms, in line with an initial estimate made public on January 15.

In other French company news, Vivendi has returned to its demerger project and is considering a division into four entities: Canal+, Havas, a company combining publishing and distribution assets (interests in Lagardère and Prisma Media) and an investment company (financial interests in culture, media and entertainment).

Nexans has informed the markets that the French competition authority (Autorité de la Concurrence - AC) carried out raids on three of its sites in France on Tuesday, without specifying which ones. According to the group, these operations are part of an investigation targeting the energy cable distribution sector in the French overseas departments and territories.

Finally, last night, Groupe Seb indicated that it expected to achieve sales of 8006 ME in 2023, with organic growth of 5.3%. This performance is in line with the Group's target of organic sales growth of around 5% in 2023.

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