Yesterday, markets witnessed several major financial transactions: Nvidia on Arm Holdings. Euronext, Deutsche Börse and SIX on Borsa Italiana. Gilead on Immunomedics. GardaWorld on G4S... Not to mention the rumors, such as those of a merger between UBS Group and Crédit Suisse, or of LVMH, which could swap Tiffany for Compagnie Financière Richemont.

This buying fever is a positive signal sent by company managers: one does not embark on large-scale external growth without having a sufficient degree of confidence in the future. Of course, you may object that LVMH has decided not to buy Tiffany because of Covid-19, or that Peugeot and Fiat Chrysler announced yesterday that they were revising the terms of their union because of the effects of the pandemic. Nevertheless, the increase in transactions is tilting the confidence cursor in the right direction. 

Today, it's Chinese economic data that is making headlines, particularly because retail sales have picked up again over the past year, a first since the beginning of the year. The annual industrial production growth in China was better-than-expected at 5.6% and retail sales growth reached 0.5%, again, also exceeding expectations. All of which should fuel the debate on the eve of a much-anticipated intervention by the U.S. central bank, which will publish its new economic forecasts and which could elaborate a little on its strategy of targeting an average inflation rate rather than a target rate.

Today on the agenda in Europe, we have French inflation in August, British employment figures, the German ZEW business confidence index. In the United States, the Empire Manufacturing Index and industrial production figures will lead the session.