CAC40: gains 1% weekly despite a disappointing end to the session

(CercleFinance.com) - After spending the whole session in green, even peaking at 7694 points (+0.
7%), the Paris Bourse saw its gains wane in the second half of the session, even turning red in the final hour.

At the final gong, the Parisian index lost 0.13% to 7630 points, penalized, among others, by Pernod Ricard (-1.8%) and Airbus (-1.2%). It should be noted that this last session of the month was also marked by the return of traders, with almost 4 billion euros exchanged during the day.

Despite this slightly disappointing close, the CAC40 nonetheless gained almost 1% over the past week, taking its gains to 1.5% since the start of the year.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones gave up 0.1%, behind the S&P500 (+0.2%) and the Nasdaq (+0.3%), on the eve of a 3-day weekend in the USA.

The resilience of stock markets in the USA and Europe, despite Nvidia's mixed results (+1% after -6.5% the previous day), shows that investors are finding new bullish relays beyond the surge of the 'Magnificent Seven'.

Nvidia's pullback following its latest quarterly report, despite beating expectations, reinforces the thesis that the stock is now perfectly valued", explain analysts at Capital Economics.
"But that doesn't mean that the party's over, or that the AI bubble is bursting", they reassure us.

Wall Street's optimism was bolstered this Friday by the PCE index, which came in at 2.5%, i.e. a stable annual inflation rate compared with June. Core inflation stood at 2.6% (excluding energy and food), which is also very positive.

The Commerce Department, which publishes these figures, also reports that US household spending rose by 0.5% in July compared with the previous month, while incomes rose by 0.3%.

In Europe, the unemployment rate continued to fall in the eurozone in July, to 6.4% of the working population, compared with 6.5% in June, Eurostat announced on Friday (but the situation is worsening in Germany)

According to Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office, the number of jobseekers in the 20 countries using the single currency reached 10.99 million, down 114.000 month-on-month and 190,000 year-on-year.

Eurostat reports that the unemployment rate in the European Union as a whole remained stable at 6% in July, as in June and July 2023.

Eurozone inflation came in at 2.2% for August, a welcome surprise less than two weeks before the European Central Bank's (ECB) monetary policy meeting.

Economists hope that consumer price inflation will be back to around 2% year-on-year by October, close to the target set by the ECB.

There were also some statistics for France this morning.

According to Insee's provisional end-of-month estimate, consumer prices in France rose by 1.9% year-on-year in August 2024, marking a clear slowdown after +2.3% in July.

In addition, in the second quarter of 2024, France's gross domestic product (GDP) (in volume and in CVS-CJO data) rose by 0.2% compared with the previous quarter, according to Insee, which thus revised downwards by 0.1 points its initial estimate published previously.

Finally, in July 2024, French household spending on goods rebounded by 0.3% in volume terms (after -0.6% in June, a figure revised from an initial estimate of -0.5%), according to Insee's CVS-CJO data.

On the bond markets, the flood of figures resulted in a status quo, with T-Bonds unchanged at 3.865% (the '2-year' tightened by +.51Pt to 3.908%).
Identical scenario in Europe, with -0.5Pt on Bunds at 2.758% and OATs at 2.995%, while Italian BTPs are perfectly balanced at 3.665%.
On the FOREX, it's also been a very quiet day, with the Euro down 0.15% at $1.1060.

In French company news, Dassault Aviation announced the signing, on the occasion of Emmanuel Macron's visit to Belgrade, of a contract for the sale of 12 Rafales to equip the Air Force and Air Defense of the Serbian Armed Forces.

TotalEnergies announced on Friday that it had concluded an investment in the sustainable management of forestry operations in the United States, with the aim of preserving sustainable carbon sinks.

Lastly, Crédit Agricole shares benefited on Friday from a positive note from HSBC to post the biggest rise in the CAC 40 index (+2.6%), with analysts from the British bank hailing certain changes underway within the green bank model.

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