The Paris stock market is keeping up the pace, posting gains of +0.6% around 7370 points with 30 minutes to go... but volumes remain as scant as the previous day (1dE traded in 8 hours), despite the return of British traders.

Buyers are encouraged by the slight fall in bond yields in Europe, with our OATs erasing -2.8Pts, Italian BTPs -4Pts, Bunds erasing -4.5Pt at 2.5210%.
On Wall Street, the Nasdaq clearly stood out with a +1.1% surge against an S&P500 or Dow Jones at +0.1/+0.2%.

US T-Bonds fell -8.5pts to 4.096%, the '1 year' fell -5.5pts to 5.405% and the '5 year' fell -8pts to 4.31%, while US consumer confidence fell from 114 to 106.1, whereas economists were forecasting 116 after the initial figure of 117 (1st estimate).

The index measuring consumers' assessment of their current situation fell to 144.8, after 153 in July, while the index of their expectations dropped to 80.2 from 88 last month.

In its press release, the ConfBoard points out that an expectations sub-index below the 80-point threshold is a harbinger of recession, a scenario the organization continues to anticipate between now and the end of the year.

Furthermore, house prices in the USA (in the top 20 metropolitan areas) rose by 0.9% in June compared with the previous month, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller indexes.
But in year-on-year comparison, prices contracted by 1.2% in June, a decline that was nonetheless mitigated compared with the 1.7% fall in May, with in particular increases observed in Chicago (+4.2%), Cleveland (+4.1%) and New York (+3.4%).

Traders remain torn between the prospect of a rate hike in early November in the United States (consensus 60%), and signs of a slowdown in the global economy that could lead central banks to ease the cost of money.

One indicator remains on today's menu: the Conference Board's consumer confidence index, which will measure the impact of the recent rise in gasoline prices on US household morale.

In the meantime, the Dollar is eroding a little against the Euro, -0.3% to 1.0850, and the Dollar Index is slightly negative (-0.1% to 103.95).

In French company news, Lacroix last night reported Q2 sales of €193m, up 11.4% on the same period in 2022.

This morning, Voltalia announced the full commissioning of its new Garrido complex in Portugal, comprising five solar power plants with a total capacity of 50.6 megawatts, for which construction was launched in September 2022.

Technip Energies reports that it has won a 'significant' contract (between 50 and 250 million euros in sales, depending on its terminology) from bp for a hydrogen production unit at its Kwinana biorefinery in Western Australia.

Finally, Freelance.com reports sales for the first half of 2023 of 419.4 million euros, up 10% year-on-year, with organic growth of 18% in France more than offsetting a 4% decline internationally.

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