The Paris Bourse ended the first session of December with a gain of 0.48%, at 7346 points, driven in particular by Worldline (+5.9%), Alstom (+3.9%) and URW (+2.7%).

The Paris index gained 0.5% over the week, marking its 5th consecutive week of gains.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced that it was premature to talk about a rate cut (adequate figures will be needed for several months). He confirms that a rate hike remains on the table... but the markets clearly don't believe him.

Goldman Sachs expects the cost of money to ease as early as Q2 2024, and estimates that oil should move between $80 and $100 in 2024, which means that falling energy prices will no longer be the driving force behind falling inflation.

While the CAC and S&P500 have just completed their best month of the year, many analysts point out that the worst-case scenario has now been ruled out, which augurs a new upward sequence for equity markets.

December is traditionally a buoyant month for the stock markets, with year-end balance sheet adjustments seeing managers sell underperforming stocks in favor of winning ones to make their portfolios more attractive.

On the statistics front, the contraction in US manufacturing slowed in November, according to the monthly ISM (Institute for Supply Management) survey published on Friday.

The index was perfectly unchanged last month at 46.7, the same level as in October, whereas economists were expecting it to rise to 47.8.

This morning, investors also took note of the HCOB PMI index for eurozone manufacturing, produced by S&P Global.
This recovered from 43.1 in October to 44.2 in November, its highest level since last May, but still points to a sharp contraction in the sector.

The data once again highlight declines in activity, new orders, purchasing volumes and inventories, but the outlook for activity has improved. At the same time, purchase prices fell sharply again.

On the bond market, 10-year T-Bonds eased by -7pts to 4.28% (despite Powell's comments), the German Bund for the same maturity posted -7pts to 2.38% and the French OAT eased by -8pts to 2.94%, a 'low' since late summer.

In currencies, the dollar rallied +0.2 against the euro to $1.08/euro.

In the energy market, Brent crude failed to benefit from yesterday's announcement of a "voluntary" (i.e., non-binding) cut in OPEC+ production, falling by 1.8% to $81.3/barrel.

In other French company news, Bloomberg understands from "people close to the matter" that Crédit Agricole SA is considering taking a stake in Worldline SA to help stabilize its ailing payment partner.
Against this backdrop, the Worldline share gained over 5%, the best performance of the CAC.

Pierre & Vacances reports net income of -20.6 million euros for fiscal 2023, compared with +325 million the previous year, but adjusted EBITDA of 137.1 million, up 74% on fiscal 2019 (pre-Covid reference).

TotalEnergies announced on Friday that it had signed an agreement with the British group Prax to sell its minority stake in a refinery in South Africa.

Thales said it had signed an agreement to insure its entire pension scheme in the UK, a decision that will result in the recognition of a financial expense.

Finally, noting the opening of insolvency proceedings in respect of several entities in the Signa group, Peugeot Invest said its exposure to this group represented 2.9% of revalued gross assets, which stood at 6.4 billion euros at the end of June.

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