The final trading sessions of 2025 proved disappointing, weighed down by sluggishness and a lack of initiative. However, 2026 is off to a much brighter start, with a wave of historic records across Europe.
Paris's stock market, which reopened in the red, quickly reversed course and extended its gains, reclaiming the 8,200 mark for the first time since November 13 (a seven-week gap). The CAC is now within close reach—about 1.4%—of its all-time high of 8,314 points, set during the November 13, 2025 session.

The Paris index is up 0.7%, hovering near 8,205 points, buoyed by STMicro (+5.4%), Airbus (+2.5%), and Safran (+3%).
But the CAC40 is not the only index on a roll: Germany's DAX is retesting its historic highs from October 9/10, and the E-Stoxx50 (+1.2% at 5,860) is smashing its previous records from November 12/13 (closing at 5,787 on 11/12, intraday peak at 5,818 on 11/13).
London's FTSE also set a fresh record, breaking through the 10,000-point barrier (+0.9% to 10,045 points) for the first time, while Milan's MIB-30 (+1%) is flirting with the 45,400 mark.

Wall Street is also kicking off 2026 on a strong note: the S&P500 is up 0.7% (approaching 6,900), the Dow Jones is lagging slightly (+0.1%), and the Nasdaq-100 is off to a flying start with +1.3% toward 25,570, led by Micron (+8%), Intel (+7.9%), ASML (+7.8%), Western Digital (+6.6%), ARM (+6.2%), AMD (+5.5%), and Nvidia (+2.6%).
The "SOXX" index is already surging by +4.5% (around $315), its best performance since November 24, and the record close of $316.3 from December 10 is now within striking distance.
Such optimism for the tech sector!
For 2026, strategists continue to anticipate robust, albeit uneven, global growth, with the United States and China as the main drivers.

Risk assets are expected to keep climbing (Friday's rally in "semis" even exceeded expectations), mirroring the ongoing boom in artificial intelligence—but questions remain about current valuation levels.

The financial world will be watching closely as Jerome Powell steps down, with particular attention on who will succeed him at the helm of the Federal Reserve.

On the economic front, inflation control and the monetary policy trajectory of central banks will be key market drivers.

The year will also be marked by U.S. midterm elections, as well as a number of ongoing international concerns: Sudan, Russia/Ukraine, China/Taiwan, Israel/Palestine, and the Beijing/Washington trade war.

After a champagne start to January 2, market initiatives may be limited next week ahead of the new earnings season, which kicks off by January 12.
On the data front, the HCOB PMI for eurozone manufacturing, produced by S&P Global, slipped further into contraction territory, dropping from 49.6 in November to 48.8 in December, signaling a worsening outlook for the sector.

Meanwhile, the French HCOB manufacturing PMI, also calculated by S&P Global, returned to expansion and even showed the strongest improvement in conditions since June 2022.
It rose from 47.8 in November to 50.7 in December, bucking the European trend and standing in contrast to the weak car sales figures in France for December.

In fact, in December, the French new passenger car market shrank by 5.84% compared to the same period a year earlier, with 172,927 registrations, despite one extra business day.
As for light commercial vehicles, 33,434 were registered last month—a slight increase of 0.65%. Combining passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, the French market fell by 4.85% to 206,361 in December.

On the bond market, 2026 is off to a rough start: the yield on Germany's ten-year Bund rose by 3 basis points to 2.892%, the French OAT of the same maturity increased by 4 basis points to 3.600%, and the situation is even worse in Italy, where BTPs are up 5 basis points to 3.561%—a deterioration that equity markets have largely ignored.

Meanwhile, the euro, which gained over 14% against the dollar last year, is slipping against the greenback (-0.15% to around 1.1735).
Gold, the big winner of 2025, is resuming its upward trajectory, heading toward $4,350 per ounce after some profit-taking during the holiday lull. Silver is up +1.5% to $73.5 but remains below the $75/76 seen last Friday.

Brent crude from the North Sea is down 1% to just under $60 a barrel, while WTI is faring even worse, down 1.3% to $56.7.

In French corporate news, Michelin announced Friday it had reached agreements to acquire two American specialists in coated fabrics and technical textiles, aiming to strengthen its polymer composites business by expanding into new markets.

Voltalia has announced the start of construction of the strategic Artemisya complex—storage (100 megawatts / 200 megawatt-hours) and wind (100 megawatts)—in Uzbekistan, the first such facility in Central Asia to combine solar, wind, and storage.

Casino announced the sale, effective today, of its 3C Cameroon subsidiary to 2S Retail. 3C Cameroon operates seven "BAO Cash & Carry" outlets, including five company-owned stores in Douala and two franchised stores in Nkongsamba and Limbe.

Valneva and the Serum Institute of India (SII), part of the Cyrus Poonawalla Group, have decided to terminate their license agreement for Valneva's single-shot chikungunya vaccine, allowing Valneva to regain full rights to the product.