The Paris Bourse ended the day down 0.39%, at 7316 points, despite the release of encouraging statistics for France and the eurozone.

During the day, investors learned of a 1.3% rebound in French manufacturing in February (versus -1.5% the previous month), as well as in industry as a whole (+1.2% after -1.4%), according to Insee's CVS-CJO data.

The manufacturing industry recovered significantly over one month in transport equipment (+5.6% after -7.6%), in other transport equipment (+7.3% after -11.5%) and, to a lesser extent, in automobiles (+3.4% after -1.9%).

Meanwhile, the S&P Global composite PMI index of overall activity in France rose from 51.7 in February to 52.7 in March, signalling a further monthly increase in the private sector, taking its rate of expansion to a ten-month high.

The same trend can be seen in the eurozone, where the S&P Global composite PMI index for overall activity rose from 52 in February to 53.7 in March, indicating continued growth in eurozone activity and signaling a ten-month high.

Growth in the 'services' sector improved by +2pts to 55, and even reached 59 in Spain.

In Germany, industrial orders jumped by +4.8% in February, and growth in 2023 is expected to be +0.3% according to German institutes.

A slight downside to this string of good surprises: growth in the private sector in France slipped to 52.7 from 54 in March, according to the monthly S&P survey.

In the US, the private sector created just 145,000 jobs in March, well below expectations, according to the monthly survey published on Wednesday by ADP, a specialist in human resources management outsourcing.

Job creations over the past month have therefore slowed significantly compared to the previous month's 261,000, a number revised slightly upwards from an initial estimate of 242,000.

"The labor market is beginning to find its footing, as consumer demand ebbs and borrowing costs rise", comments ADP in its press release.

Another slightly worrying figure: the US trade deficit widened by +2.7% to -$70.5 bn in February, compared with -$68.7 bn the previous month (which was revised from an initial estimate of -$68.3 bn), according to the Commerce Department.

Finally, growth in US service sector activity slowed more sharply than expected in March, to 52.1 from 55.1 in February, according to the monthly Institute for Supply Management (ISM) survey published on Wednesday (consensus around 54.3).

The new orders component dropped to 52.2 from 62.6 the previous month, while the activity sub-index fell to 55.4 from 56.3 in February.

Symmetrically, bond markets are back in the black, with yields down -9pts on our OATs to 2.689% and -9.5pts on Bunds to 2.175%.
US T-Bonds are down -6pts to 3.276%... but this is not affecting the dollar, which is up 0.3% to $1.0920/E.

In French company news, TotalEnergies reports that it has reached an agreement with the Iraqi government, confirming all the terms of the Development & Production Contract signed in 2021 and jointly defining the conditions and mutual assurances required to move forward on the GGIP project.

Capgemini reports that it has been selected to coordinate the next-generation IoT (Internet of Things) project as part of the European Commission's Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative.

Sodexo reports a 30.6% increase in net income to 440 million euros for the first half of 2023, and a 30.9% increase in operating income to 704 million (+22.5% excluding currency impact), representing a margin improvement of 60 basis points to 5.8%.

The AMF has declared compliant the proposed simplified tender offer (OPAS) for CS Group shares, filed by Société Générale on behalf of Sopra Steria Group, which currently holds 82.47% of the capital and 82.86% of the voting rights.

Finally, Thales has announced the launch of the SCRED (Socle Commun du Renseignement cyber Et de la Détection) collaborative project, bringing together 11 French players specializing in cyber security.

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