The Paris stock market is expected to be close to balance this Thursday, as the session will be marked by an avalanche of corporate results and a meeting of the European Central Bank (ECB).
After yesterday’s slight decline of 0.19% to 6,753.52 points, the futures contract on the flagship CAC 40 index gained 0.06% some 40 minutes before the opening of Thursday’s session. “There was little in the price movements to suggest that the declines were anything other than a brief pause in the overall rise in European markets,” said Michael Hewson, an analyst at CMC Markets, who is taking an optimistic view of what is to come.
It was the mostly better than expected corporate earnings releases that initiated and sustained the overall uptrend that has been taking shape in recent days.
This Thursday, investors will again have to analyse numerous results, whether in Europe (Nokia or Volkswagen), in the world (Amazon, Apple, Sony…) or even in Paris, with Airbus, Stellantis or even Sanofi.
Meetings with many central banks are also planned, which should bring macro-economic issues, such as persistent inflation or slowing growth, to the forefront and to the heart of the analyses.
In the early afternoon, Christine Lagarde, the President of the European Central Bank, holds a press conference to explain the decisions of the monetary committee. Although inflation is at the heart of the debates, it should not make the ECB deviate from its course, which estimates the beginning of a gradual normalization of the monetary policy by December.
Several French companies are worth watching. TotalEnergies announced a 23-fold increase in net profit over one year, to 4.6 billion dollars in the third quarter, thanks in particular to the recovery in oil prices. Airbus is also in the green, with a net profit of 404 million euros in the third quarter, reflecting the gradual recovery of its activities. On the other hand, the car manufacturer Stellantis was hit hard by the shortage of semiconductors and produced around 600,000 fewer vehicles than expected in the third quarter, a drop of 30%.
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