The Paris Bourse is back in the green, around 7,140 points, a well-identified resistance level (the Euro-Stoxx50 also posted +0.3%).
Wall Street is clearly picking up the pace: after +0.6% at the opening, gains have doubled or tripled with +1.2% for the Dow Jones, +1.5% for the S&P500 and +2.2% for the Nasdaq.
This wiped out the previous day's losses: the Fed announced last night that it intends to continue raising rates and has no plans to reduce them this year, despite concerns about the health of the banking system.

But the -1.5% fall in US indices was more related to a statement by Janet Yellen ruling out the scenario of a bailout of regional banks, leaving their creditors and shareholders to face up to their responsibilities (while systemic banks remain unfailingly supported by the Fed and the government).

Unsurprisingly, on Wednesday, the Fed raised its target for the federal funds rate by a quarter point, while declaring that it is considering further rate hikes in view of persistently higher-than-expected inflation.

With regard to the recent turmoil in the financial markets, the Fed acknowledged that the banking turbulence was likely to affect both growth and employment in the USA. The Treasury believes that there is no need for further bailouts of the US banking sector at this time.
The US job market remains very robust: weekly jobless claims in the US fell by 1,000 last week, to 191,000 from 192,000 the previous week, according to the Labor Department.

This score remains very close to the lowest historical levels seen in the last 50 years.
The number of people receiving regular benefits edged up by 14,000 to 1,694,000 in the week to March 11, the last week available for this statistic.
The surprise of the day came from new home sales (+1.1%), which continued to climb in the US in February despite rising house prices and rising borrowing rates.
The Commerce Department reports that sales reached an annualized rate of 640,000 units last month, marking a third consecutive increase.
But this upturn needs to be put into perspective, as year-on-year sales are down 19%.
New home sales in the South, which alone account for more than half of all transactions, rose by 3% last month, while they jumped by 8.1% in the West.
The median price of new homes rose further to $438,200, compared with $426,500 in January and $427,400 in February 2022.
Across the Channel, the Bank of England has just raised its key rate by 25 pts to 4.25% and is optimistic about inflation, estimating that it will slow at a faster rate than previously forecast.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) raised its key rate by 50 basis points to 1.50% and reaffirmed that the Swiss banking system remains very solid, despite Credit Suisse's woes.

On the yield side, a clear easing is taking place after the sharp deterioration of the previous day, and yields are falling back close to those tested on Tuesday: our OATs are down 12pts to 2.733%, Bunds are down 12pts to 2.21%, Italian BTPs are down 11pts to 4.06%.
Across the Atlantic, T-Bonds are improving very slightly: -3.5Pts to 3.465%, the yield spread should benefit the Dollar, but it doesn't: the greenback loses a further 0.4%, now trading at around 1.090 against the Euro.

Despite Wall Street's decline, oil prices are reversing course, with US light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) recovering 1.7% to $71.2.
Brent rebounded by 1.6% to test $77 in London.

Gold, the safe-haven par excellence, benefited from the decline on Wall Street and in the dollar, in a "flight to quality" that pushed the fine metal up 1% to $1,980 an ounce, still close to all-time highs.

In news from French companies, Valneva (-2.5%) announced a net loss of 143.3 million euros in 2022, compared with a loss of 73.4 million the previous year, as well as a negative adjusted EBITDA which rose from 47.1 to 69.2 million year-on-year.

Voltalia (10%) reported net income, group share of -7.2 million euros for the past year, compared with -1.3 million in 2021, and stable EBITDA at 137.4 million (-10% at constant exchange rates), penalized by the deconsolidation of power plants sold in November 2021.

Aubay is reporting record net income of 35.6 million euros for 2022, compared with 34.4 million in 2021, and an operating margin down 0.2 points to 10.4%, on sales up 9.1% to 513.5 million.

Copyright (c) 2023 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.