The Paris stock market ended the day at 7574 points (+0.08%), at the end of a session marked by near-immobility on the index, as investors searched for catalysts.

Last Friday, New York Fed President John Williams cooled the markets' ardor by declaring that it was "premature" to envisage a Fed rate cut as early as March.

His counterpart at the Atlanta Fed, Raphael Bostic, echoed this view, saying that there was nothing "imminent" about an easing of the Fed's monetary policy.

It's true that some investors are going so far as to envisage ten rate cuts by 2024, a scenario considered exaggerated by some given the persistence of inflation.

On the economic front, the upturn in housing starts (+14.8%) shows that the US real estate market is behaving paradoxically: first-time buyers are absent, no-one is selling their property to buy again (a shortage situation), so solvent buyers are building homes to their own specifications

On the other hand, building permits for US homes - which are supposed to foreshadow future housing starts - fell by 2.5%.

While the final sessions before the holidays are usually buoyant, the lingering questions surrounding interest rates are weighing on trading, in the absence of any real catalysts.

On the bond market, the upward "rally" of recent weeks is taking a slight breather, but this remains in the realm of consolidation or mere technical pullback.

At around 3.895% (-5.3pts), the yield on ten-year Treasuries remains well below the technical threshold of 4%, while the yield on the German Bund for the same maturity, the benchmark for the eurozone as a whole, stands at 2.008% (-0.5pts).
On the energy front, oil rebounded by 1.1% to $79.3 a barrel for Brent.

In other French company news, TotalEnergies announced a second renewable electricity sales contract (CPPA) with petrochemical company LyondellBasell, to which it will now supply 275 MWac (358 MW) of green electricity from its Cottonwood Bayou and Brazoria Solar farms in Texas.

Airbus reports that easyJet has confirmed, after shareholder approval, a firm order for 157 additional A320neo Family aircraft, as part of its fleet renewal and improvement plan.
The aircraft manufacturer adds that Lufthansa has also decided to place a firm order for 40 additional A220-300s for its short- and medium-haul fleet.

Finally, Thales announces that it has teamed up with SK Telecom (SKT), Korea's largest mobile operator, to successfully carry out advanced resistance tests in post-quantum cryptography.

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