CAC40: Part of the gap erased, W-Street closed

(CercleFinance.com) - After losing nearly 0.
8% shortly after the opening, the Paris stock market has made up some of its lost ground. It is now down just 0.25% to 7,610 points, with declines in Teleperformance (-3%) and Kering (-2.7%) partially offset by Sanofi (+2%) and Orange (+1.3%).

It should be noted that Wall Street will remain closed today, on account of Labor Day, a factor usually synonymous with lacklustre trading on the Old Continent.

The rest of the week, however, promises to be busier on Wall Street, with August's employment figures the highlight, perhaps determining the course of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy.

The markets are hoping for a positive reading of the statistics, after the disappointment of the previous month, which led them to envisage a possible recession in the United States and sent stock market indices reeling.

'The market is waiting (...) to know whether the Fed will initiate significant rate cuts, reflecting either an emergency approach or a gradual adjustment approach", explains Florian Ielpo, Head of Macroeconomic Research at Lombard Odier Investment Managers.

In the meantime, investors took note of several statistics this morning.

China's manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) came in at 49.1 in August, down from 49.4 the previous month, due to the impact of heat waves and thunderstorms, according to the State Bureau of Statistics (BES).

In the Eurozone, the HCOB PMI index for Eurozone manufacturing industry, produced by S&P Global, was stable at 45.8 in August, and below the 50 mark since July 2022, thus still signalling a sharp deterioration in the sector's business conditions in the region.

In France, S&P Global's HCOB PMI for the manufacturing industry reported the sharpest deterioration in manufacturing conditions for seven months, coming in at 43.9 in August, after 44 the previous month.

Lastly, news from France's leading companies included Alstom, which announced that it had finalized the sale of its North American conventional signaling business to Knorr-Bremse AG, following the agreement signed on April 19 as part of its global action plan presented in November 2023 to strengthen its balance sheet.

For its part, Safran announces that, at the end of an exclusive negotiation process begun in June, Preligens, presented will join the group. This acquisition has been finalized for an enterprise value of 220 million euros. Preligens will be renamed Safran.AI and attached to Safran Electronics & Defense.

Finally, Atos announces a downward update of its financial projections for the period 2024-27, anticipating sales of 9.7 billion euros for the current year, representing organic growth of around -4%.

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