The CAC40 (+0.6% to 8,210) is not letting up, even after clearing the 'March' contract and switching to 'April'.

Nor are the other European indices (Euro-Stoxx50 +0.4% to 5,012, +11% since January 1st), despite Wall Street's heaviness, which remains undiminished after 2 hours of trading.

The orchestration of the rise for this "4 Witches" session (big quarterly deadline) since Monday has been a model of its kind: no news has managed to halt the upward funicular and the Parisian index has cheerfully gained over 0.5% to finish, as everyone has guessed, above 8,200Pts at 4pm and conclude the quarter at the zenith of the zenith.
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The opposite scenario for the Nasdaq (-0.8%), which struggled to hold above 16,000Pts this Friday and ended the quarter at the zenith of the zenith.000Pts this Friday, ending the week down from -0.5% to -0.6%.
The Dow Jones is down -0.3% (below 38,800), the S&P500 -0.6% (around 5,120): all bets were off on Wednesday, and it was time to lighten up.

US figures are disappointing, and this Friday's figures will not dispel the unease surrounding recent inflation data.

US consumer confidence remained broadly stable in March, according to the University of Michigan's preliminary estimate of 76.5, compared with 76.9 the previous month.

Although the index was down 0.5% on February, this variation is well within the margin of error.

However, the index is up 23.4% on March 2023, and consumers are still alive and well, as demonstrated by Thursday's solid retail sales figures, accompanied by the strongest annualized rise in producer prices since September.

Of note - albeit an 'inconclusive' figure - was a sharp contraction in manufacturing activity in New York State in March, according to the local Fed's 'Empire State' index of general conditions: the index plunged 19 points on the previous month to stand at -20.9.

Demand weakened due to a significant drop in new orders and a decline in shipments", explain the surveyors, adding that labor market indicators also weakened.

The pace of input price increases moderated somewhat, while that of selling prices remained stable. Businesses expect conditions to improve over the next six months, although optimism remained subdued.

Finally, US import prices rose by 0.3% in February compared with the previous month (+0.2% excluding petroleum products), while export prices increased by 0.8%, both gross and excluding foodstuffs.

The 12-month picture is more encouraging: import and export prices fell by 0.8% (-0.5% excluding petroleum products) and 1.8% respectively last month (-1% excluding foodstuffs).

Bond markets are coming off the low point of a "complicated" week: yields have fallen sharply since Tuesday, and Thursday's session was very negative.
No relief on the horizon this Friday, with T-Bonds down by a further +2pts to 4.315%, the same gap for our OATs (to 2.885%, then for Bunds (to 2.44%) and +3pts for Italian BTPs to 3.7030%.

Bitcoin came under considerable stress at around 2.30 a.m., plunging 72,000% to $67,300 (the low tested at around 10.00 a.m. this morning) before bouncing back to $68.400... making it just about stable over the past week.

In other stock news, Bolloré published a net income for 2023 of 268 million euros, after 3.4 billion the previous year, for stable sales of nearly 13.7 billion (-5% organic).

Following the announcement made in November, Spie announces the completion of the acquisition of ROBUR Industry Service Group GmbH, the necessary regulatory approvals having been received and all conditions precedent having been lifted.

Elis announces that it has placed a €400 million principal amount of senior unsecured notes under its EMTN (Euro Medium Term Notes) program, with a six-year maturity and an annual fixed coupon of 3.75%.

Euroapi has suspended its 2024 outlook, due to the suspension of API production at its Brindisi site in Italy due to quality control failures, a situation that is expected to impact the Group's operating and financial performance.

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