The Paris Bourse ended the session down 0.93%, at 8016 points. While Sanofi stood out with a gain of 4.5%, several heavyweights on the stock market were down, including Dassault Systèmes (-4.2%), LVMH (-2.8%), Teleperformance (-2.7%) and Pernod Ricard (-2.4%).

The Paris index managed to limit its losses at the end of the session, having lost up to 1.5% by mid-afternoon, with a low at 7956 points.

It has to be said that the markets were cooled by the US GDP figures for the first quarter, published early this afternoon by the US Commerce Department. They came in at the opposite end of the consensus range: just +1.6% instead of the median estimate of +2.8%, and after Goldman Sachs had just raised its forecast to +3.2%.

In addition, underlying PCE inflation was estimated at 3.7%, versus the 3.4% expected by analysts.

Against this backdrop, US 10-year bond yields jumped +5pts to 4.705%, their highest since late November. Our OATs of the same maturity tightened by 2.5pts to 3.114%, severely impacted by US rates, and Bunds fared no better, with +4pts to 2.624%.

As a reminder, this morning investors learned of a deterioration in the French business climate between March and April, with the INSEE synthetic indicator dropping one point to 99, just below its long-term average (100).

This deterioration is the result of the less favorable economic situation in all sectors of activity, with the exception of retail trade. The manufacturing and services indices both fell by three points to 100.

On the quarterly front, disappointing forecasts from Meta Platforms (down 13%) weighed on the trend, jeopardizing the recent renewed optimism in the technology sector

Heavyweights Alphabet (-2.5%) and Microsoft (-4.1%) will publish their financial statements later this evening.

The dollar was weakened by this series of statistics, despite the surge in interest rates, losing 0.2% against the euro to $1.072/E.
Oil is proving resilient, losing just -0.6% to $87.6 for 'Brent', while WTI is evolving on the same basis with -0.5% to $82.5 on the NYMEX.

The stock market is also buoyed by a number of earnings releases in Paris and the rest of Europe.

STMicroelectronics this morning unveiled weaker-than-expected figures for the quarter, forecasting a 26% drop in second-quarter sales.

Hermès International, meanwhile, reported sales of 3.8 billion euros for the first quarter of 2024, up 17% at constant exchange rates (CER) and 13% overall, 'with solid activity in all geographic zones'.

Dassault Systèmes reports first-quarter 2024 non-IFRS EPS up 12% to 0.30 euro at constant exchange rates, with a non-IFRS operating margin of 31.1%, up 50 basis points at constant exchange rates and ahead of target.

Pernod Ricard posted third-quarter 2023-24 sales of 2.35 billion euros, down 2% on a reported basis and stable on an organic basis (+2% excluding Russia), with volumes up by around 1% after four consecutive quarters of decline.

Oddo BHF said it had lowered its recommendation on Orange shares from 'outperform' to 'neutral', with a price target reduced from 12 to 11.5 euros. According to the analyst, Orange's Q1 performance reflects the current imbalance in the market, with Iliad and Bouygues capturing 80% of growth (vs. Orange ~20% excluding declining wholesale).



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