The CAC40 (-0.25% below 7,935) will not end February at its zenith, or even in the green, unless there is a last-minute surge.
The Euro-Stoxx50, down just -0.1%, still has a chance of breaking a closing record (with the DAX40 at +0.6% and breaking a record at 17,740Pts), but it doesn't look good as Wall Street remains very indecisive.

The Dow Jones is crumbling (-0.05%), the S&P500 is appreciating at the margin (+0.2% towards 5.080Pts) and the Nasdaq-100 with +0.5% closes in on the 18,000 mark (after 18,028 around 3.35pm).
The most eagerly awaited US figure of the week, and indeed for the last 10 days, fell at 2.30pm... and even fell completely flat, since it's an archetypal 'non-event': everything turns out to be in line with expectations.

Wall Street had reopened slightly higher (before losing steam), thanks to the 'PCE' and household incomes, which rose by +1%.
According to the Commerce Department, the PCE price inflation index stood at +2.4% year-on-year in January, down 0.2 points on December 2023, in line with Jefferies' forecast.

Excluding food and energy, two usually volatile categories, the underlying index fell from +2.9% to +2.8% month-on-month, again in line with the broker's forecast.

Also according to the Commerce Department, consumer spending in the US rose by 0.2% last month compared with December, on income growth of 1% month-on-month.

The Labor Department reported +13,000 new jobless claims in the US in the week to February 19, to 215,000.
The four-week moving average - more representative of the underlying trend - came in at 212,500 for the same week, down by 3,000 on the previous week's revised average.

Finally, the number of people receiving regular benefits rose by 45,000 to 1,905,000 in the week to February 12, the most recent period available for this statistic.
On average, economists are expecting core PCE inflation - excluding food and energy - to accelerate to 0.4% in January, compared with 0.2% in December.
T-Bonds improve slightly (-4Pts to 4.235%) and Bunds and OATs line up with -4 and -5Pts respectively.... erasing the previous day's poor session.

According to the FedWatch barometer, the market is now ruling out any reduction in the cost of money in March and May, but the scenario of a rate cut in June is considered credible by 51% of traders.

On the Old Continent, the first monthly inflation figures for Germany published at 2:00 p.m. point to a further fall in prices to levels not seen since June 2021.

In the meantime, the markets were informed this morning that in the fourth quarter of 2023, France's gross domestic product (GDP) in volume terms was revised slightly upwards to +0.1% (compared with the stagnation announced in the first estimate), according to detailed data from INSEE (but salaried employment fell by -0.1%).

In addition, according to Insee's provisional end-of-month estimate, consumer prices in France rose by 2.9% year-on-year in February 2024, a slight slowdown after +3.1% in January.

Lastly, in January 2024, French household consumption expenditure on goods fell by 0.3% in volume terms, following a 0.3% increase in December 2023, according to Insee's CVS-CJO data.

On the foreign exchange market, the euro reverses -0.2% to $1.082.

As hesitant as ever, the oil market slips back into the red, giving up some of the gains of the last two days, but is still heading for a comfortable weekly rise at current levels.

Brent crude oil remains in contact with resistance at $83.6 a barrel.

In French company news, Nexity is down -22% following the publication of results divided by 10 in Q4 2023.

irbus Helicopters reports that it has signed a framework contract with Bristow Group for up to fifteen H135 helicopters (five firm orders and 10 options), with deliveries due to start in October 2024.

Arkema reports net income before non-recurring items of €8.75 per share for 2023 (versus €15.75 in 2022) and EBITDA down 28.9% to €1.5 billion, representing a margin of 15.8% (versus 18.3% in 2022) in a context of weak demand.
Air France-KLM reports net income of 0.93 billion euros for 2023, 'enabling a return to positive shareholders' equity at 0.5 billion for the first time since 2019', with an operating margin of 5.7%, an improvement of 1.2 points.

For 2023, Technip Energies reports 'adjusted IFRS' EPS down 9% to 1.63 euros and a recurring EBIT margin up 0.4 points to 7.4%, on sales down more than 6% to 6.01 billion euros.

Veolia reports that last year it generated sales of 45.35 billion euros, up 9% organically and 4.4% excluding the effect of higher energy prices. Ebitda came to 6.54 billion euros, representing organic growth of 7.8%, above the +5% to +7% target range set by the company.

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