The Paris stock market is catching its breath after gaining 1.3% in two sessions. The Paris index is hovering around 7420 points (-0.2%), penalized by Worldline (-3%) and Teleperformance (-2.3%).

On the eve of the release of monthly US employment figures, investors are taking a more cautious, wait-and-see approach, knowing that a weak figure could prompt the Federal Reserve to cut rates.

Conversely, better-than-expected indicators could complicate the Federal Reserve's task of recalibrating its monetary policy.

The fear is that if US employment figures (...) or the central bank speeches scheduled for next week are not in line with the start of a rapid easing cycle, this will lead to high volatility in long rates, which will inevitably be reflected in equities", warns Christopher Dembik, Investment Strategy Advisor at Pictet AM. We therefore need to be vigilant", warns the analyst.

So much so that some strategists are wondering whether the stock market's rise this autumn went too far, too fast.

"It's true that the markets went to a lot of trouble to incorporate the 'goldilocks' scenario, but an economy that is neither too hot nor too cold is a fragile equilibrium", says Barclays.

This morning, investors took note of a slight reduction in France's trade deficit in October, thanks to an easing of the energy bill, which led to a fall in imports.

The balance of trade showed a deficit of 8.5 billion euros, an improvement of 200 million euros according to figures adjusted for seasonal variations and working days released this Thursday by the French customs authorities.

Across the Rhine, following a 1.3% decline in September, German industrial production fell by 0.4% in October compared with the previous month, according to seasonally and calendar-adjusted data from Destatis.

In the United States, investors will be watching weekly jobless claims in the early afternoon, to see whether the labor market is slowing down as sharply as the latest statistics have suggested.

From a technical point of view, chartists are nonetheless pointing out that the CAC 40 looks set to break out at the top of the congestion zone in which the index has been consolidating for several months.

A breach of this pivotal level would kick-start the uptrend towards the 7537-point target, followed by the upper part of the horizontal channel at 7592 points", say the Kiplink teams.

"A breach of this major resistance would reactivate the long-term uptrend, with 8015 points as the target", the brokerage even predicts in its latest market update.

In other French company news, Saint-Gobain announced that it had reached an agreement with Soprema to sell a majority stake in its polyisocyanurate (PIR) foam insulation business operating in the UK under the Celotex brand.

Saint-Gobain also announced the acquisition of Menkol Industries Private Limited, an operation that 'strengthens its positioning in high value-added specialty building materials in a very dynamic Indian market'.

Société Générale has signed two agreements with the Vista Group to sell its entire stake in its African subsidiaries Société Générale Burkina Faso and Banco Société Générale Moçambique, currently held at 52.6% and 65% respectively.

Finally, Sanofi announces that its Sarclisa Phase III trial has met its primary endpoint of progression-free survival in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients not eligible for transplantation.

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