Futures on the CAC40, up by around 0.1%, augur a hesitant opening on the heels of a session that saw the Parisian flagship index gain more than 0.8% to 8,087 points, despite a rather disappointing report on US inflation.

As a reminder, inflation accelerated by 0.1 points to +3.2% year-on-year last month, and excluding energy and food products, the underlying rate stood at +3.8%, whereas Jefferies had expected it to be +3.7%.

"Overall, the report confirms that some of the strength seen in January was due to temporary factors", says PIMCO economist Tiffany Wilding, for whom it would not be enough to prevent the Fed from cutting rates mid-year.

The inflation report failed to halt the continuing strength of equity markets, fuelled by investor enthusiasm for technology stocks as generative AI takes center stage.

Investments in this field, particularly in companies such as Meta and Salesforce, have achieved excellent returns in 2023", points out Erling Haugan Kise, fund manager at DNB Asset Management.

On the stock front, Vallourec announced that ArcelorMittal had reached an agreement to buy Apollo's 28.4% voting rights and 27.5% shareholding in its capital, for a total of 955 million euros.

BNP Paribas estimates that '2024 will be above the net distributable income published in 2023', and reports an acceleration and expansion of its operating efficiency measures by around 400 million euros recurring.

Dassault Systèmes and Rexel announce that their Boards of Directors will propose to their AGMs, dividends of 0.23 euro and 1.20 euro per share respectively for 2023, in cash.

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