This last session before the '4 Witches' was a little disappointing!
Everything looked rosy this morning, but the euphoria subsided at 1:30 pm with the US PPI.
The CAC40 is marking time: after a funicular (and 100% algorithmic) ascent from 9 am to 12:22 pm (culminating at 8.218Pts, up 1%), the index began to decline, with a gain of +0.25% to 8,157 points.
The Euro-Stoxx50, which had climbed to a new zenith of 5.030Pts (at around 2 p.m., in the wake of the 3 French luxury champions) saw its +0.6% lead melt away and the trend turn negative (-0.2%, but remember the intraday record at 5,030).

The US indices also reversed course shortly after the opening (from +0.2% to -0.2% or -0.3%), a disappointment since gains of +0.5 to +0.6% had been anticipated before the figures published at 1:30 p.m. The S&P500 (-0.3% to +0.5%) was down by +0.5% to +0.6%.

The S&P500 (-0.3%) should have set a new record above 5,185, as should the Dow Jones, above 39,200, but it stalled below 39,160 and fell back -0.3%, below 39,000.
The Nasdaq held up little better, losing -0.2%.
This was due to US producer prices, which rose by 0.6% in gross terms in February (twice as much as expected) compared with the previous month, and by 0.4% excluding food, energy and commercial services.

According to the Labor Department, the increase stood at 1.6% gross annualized and 2.8% excluding food, energy and commercial services last month, compared with annual rates of 1% and 2.7% respectively in January.

No surprise, however, for US retail sales rebounded by 0.6% sequentially in February, broadly in line with market expectations, following a 1.1% decline the previous month (revised from an initial estimate of -0.8%).

The Commerce Department, which publishes these figures, states that excluding the automotive sector (vehicles and equipment), US retail sales rose by 0.3% last month, following a 0.8% decline in January.
Finally, the Labor Department announced 209,000 new US jobless claims for the week of March 4, a figure 1,000 lower (within the margin of uncertainty) than the previous week's revised figure (210,000 instead of the 217,000 initially announced).

The four-week moving average - more representative of the underlying trend - came out at 208,000 for the same week, an anecdotal decline of 500 on the previous week's revised average.

These figures have cooled the atmosphere a little, but this may only be temporary (as we saw with the 'NFP' and then the 'CPI', which were worse than expected but quickly digested).

Whatever the news, traders remain confident in the future", notes Christopher Dembik, at Pictet AM, warning however that "at some stage, a breather will be needed, at least to allow for profit-taking".

"A future bad company publication or a bad statistic could be the trigger. This will enable those who missed out on the bullish rally at the start of the year to get in", says the professional.

"Finally, let's not forget that once the key interest rate cut begins, a priori next June, a large proportion of the capital invested in money market instruments will move into the equity market in search of a higher yield", he continues.
In the meantime, the bond market's reaction to the PPI and retail sales figures is negative: US T-Bonds are up +10pts to 4.295%, our OATs are up +7pts to 2.8600%, and Bunds are up +7pts to 2.4200%.
The dollar takes advantage of this to recover slightly, up +0.3% to 1.0915 against the euro.
Bitcoin, which set a new all-time high at $73,800 (this morning at 8.05 a.m.), then relapsed (-3.1%) to $70,600, experienced a rather volatile sequence.

Oil (up 1.2% at $85 in London) confirms its breakthrough of the $83.7 resistance level, even though US consumption forecasts have been revised downwards for 2024 as a result of lower growth forecasts.

In other stock news, in vitro diagnostics specialist bioMérieux reports a 21% decline in net income (group share) for 2023, but a 2% organic increase in EBITDA.

The Iliad group's sales growth reached 10.4% to €9.24 billion in 2023, and 11.3% in Q4. Group EBITDAaL 2023, at 3.44 billion euros, was up 4.2% (2.1% pro forma organic). The Group's ambition is to achieve sales of 10 billion euros by 2024, and to become Europe's 5th largest mobile operator," says management.

Air Liquide announces the sale to Adenia Partners Ltd of its activities in twelve African countries, representing annual sales of around 60 million euros (less than 10% of the Group's sales on the continent).

Investors will also be able to react to the annual results unveiled Wednesday evening by steel distributor Jacquet Metals, contract logistics group ID Logistics and engineering firm Assystem.


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