CAC40: consolidates solo, OAT/Bund spread widens to 81Pb

(CercleFinance.com) - The Paris Bourse lost nearly 0.
7% and was the lone bear in Europe: the CAC40 fell back to its low for the day at 7,551, in volumes that were once again very modest (-1.5BnE).

The Euro-Stoxx50 climbed back to equilibrium after dropping -0.2% to 4,906, Frankfurt stood out with a +0.4% rise, while Amsterdam gained +0.1%.

On Wall Street, the Nasdaq (+0.2% to 17.850) posted a 3rd consecutive session of gains, returning to its all-time highs of June 17 and 18, and ending the 1st half of the year on a high note, with a gain of almost 19%.
The S&P500 gained +0.1% to +0.2% at 5,485 (in contact with all-time highs), while the Dow Jones climbed 0.2% to 39,200, and was poised to end the 2nd quarter in the red, down -2% (it was trading at 39,800 on March 28).

The session was punctuated by a number of US figures: the latest estimate of 1st quarter GDP is +1.4% (compared with +1.3%.
Durable goods orders came as a pleasant surprise, rising +0.1% where the consensus was for -0.6%.
Real estate remains depressed, as promised home sales fell by 2.1% in May, although they were expected to rise by 0.6% after plunging by 7.7% the previous month
The Labor Department announced that 233,000 new US jobless claims were registered for the week ending June 17, down by 6,000 on the previous week, which was revised upwards from 238,000 to 239,000.

The four-week moving average - more representative of the underlying trend - came in at 236,000, up 3,000 on the previous week.

Finally, the number of people receiving regular benefits rose by 18,000 to 1,839,000.

But the day is not over on Wall Street: it's time for politics, with the televised debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump scheduled for tonight on CNN, with a view to the presidential election on November 5.

With less than five months to go before the polls, the polls are predicting a particularly close election (46% of voting intentions for Trump, 45% for Biden), hence the importance of this confrontation.

In France, too, candidates will be throwing their last energies into the campaign to mark the first round of early parliamentary elections, to be held on Sunday.

Beyond the upcoming composition of the National Assembly, investors remain primarily concerned by the budgetary issues of the opposing forces, which threaten to derail public accounts.

Thursday's session will also be busy on the indicators front, with durable goods orders, unemployment benefit registrations and the third estimate of first-quarter GDP due to be released in the early afternoon in the USA.

On the bond market, the 10-year yield on US government bonds, which had been little changed since the start of the week, eased slightly to 4.2830% (-3pt) on the eve of the PCE inflation figures.

Its German equivalent stagnated at around 2.4500%, while our OATs deteriorated by +4pts to 3.262% (the spread rose to +81pts from 70 at the start of the week).

Brent crude is up 0.9% to $86 a barrel, while the dollar is down -0.3 against the euro (to 1.0715).

In French company news, Sanofi reports the publication in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) of the results of a positive Phase III trial of Dupixent (dupilumab) in the treatment of eosinophilic esophagitis in children aged 12 months to 11 years.

Saint-Gobain announces that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Fosroc, a leading unlisted global player in construction chemicals, for $1.025 billion (around €960 million) in cash.

Finally, Technip Energies and Shell Catalysts & Technologies announce a technology transfer agreement to accelerate the commercialization of Technip Energies' Bio-2-Glycols technology for the production of Mono Ethylene Glycol (MEG) from glucose.

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