The Paris Bourse ended the session with an anecdotal gain of 0.09%, at 7396 points, a rather disappointing finish given that the Paris index had briefly gained almost 1% in the early afternoon, after the release of US inflation figures, setting a new all-time session record at 7464 points.

The CAC finally gave up almost all its gains by the end of the day. The short-term objective remains to sustain several session closes above the 7410 to 7440 point zone, in order to extend this bullish sequence", say the Kiplink teams.

The eagerly-awaited figures from the Labor Department showed that the US consumer price index (CPI) rose by just 0.1% in March, following a 0.4% increase in February.

The 'core' CPI index, which excludes volatile items such as food and energy, also decelerated to +0.4% last month (as expected), compared with +0.5% in February.
The overall figure fell from 6.00% to 5.00%, beating the consensus of 5.2%.

Most of this decline was due to lower prices for heating oil, fuel and used vehicles, while healthcare costs also eased, as did the prices of certain foods such as eggs.

US government bond yields retreated by -10pts to 4.34% before rising back to 3.434% (unchanged) as the Federal Reserve may have completed its monetary tightening.

'Inflation has now slowed for nine consecutive months, which means that the effects of Fed tightening are showing results', points out Srijan Katyal, trader at ADSS.

In the light of these figures, the likelihood of further significant rate hikes by the Federal Reserve seems much less likely", he adds.

Also on today's menu, weekly oil inventories in the USA: according to data published by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA), crude stocks recorded an anecdotal rise of 0.6 million barrels (to 470.5 million barrels in the week to April 3 in the USA) compared with the previous week.

Inventories of distillates - including heating oil - were down by 0.6 million barrels, while gasoline stocks were also down, by 0.3 million barrels on the previous week.

The EIA reports that refineries operated at 89.3% of capacity during the same week, with average production of 9.8 million barrels/day.
At the same time, the US authorities (White House) have announced their intention to bring oil inventories back to pre-Covid levels.

More generally, stock markets now seem to be running out of fuel, and investors are struggling to find new catalysts to push indices even higher, as an economic slowdown looms... which would explain the decline in energy prices.

The start of the corporate earnings release 'season', this Friday, could perhaps shake traders out of their lethargy.

At this stage, analysts are expecting an average 6.8% decline in first-quarter earnings per share (EPS) for S&P 500 companies, according to the consensus drawn up by FactSet.
The dollar will nevertheless emerge weakened from the April 12 session, with a -0.6% drop to $1.0985/euro: it will retest its annual lows on this occasion.

In the news from French companies, Getlink announces that Europorte, its rail freight subsidiary, is joining forces with Socofer, the historic French manufacturer of railway equipment, to develop a project for the hybridization of diesel traction units with thermal locomotives.

Capgemini announces that it has been commissioned by Prométhée, the French NewSpace operator of nano-satellite constellations for Earth observation, to develop the mission center for its first European Japetus constellation.

SPIE France and its 6 subsidiaries announce that they will be recruiting 3,700 employees, including 700 work-study students, throughout France in 2023.

Finally, DBT announced on Wednesday that it would be joining forces with commercial real estate group IRD to set up a network of ultra-fast charging stations in the Hauts-de-France region.


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