The Paris Bourse is expected to open slightly higher on Wednesday, even though a certain wait-and-see attitude prevails on the markets in the absence of any major events due to the summer break.

At around 8.15am, the 'future' contract on the CAC 40 index - August delivery - was up 55 points at 7333 points, heralding a slight rebound after the previous day's decline (-0.7%).

Like Wall Street, the European stock markets suffered yesterday from fears surrounding the health of the global banking system, following Moody's warning earlier in the week that several US regional banks were at risk.

Against this risk-averse backdrop, and in the absence of any catalysts, the major benchmark indices weakened on Tuesday, showing signs of fatigue after their good run of recent months.

For the time being, the CAC 40 is only down a limited 0.6% on the week, a sign that investors are managing to relativize the growing questions surrounding the debt issue.

But analysts are concerned about the technical configuration displayed by the Parisian index, which has now clearly breached its major short-term support at 7360 points.

As far as trends are concerned, everything needs to be redone", say the chartists at Kiplink Finance.

"For the time being, the urgent thing is to avoid entering a negative spiral, which would force the CAC 40 index to abandon any upward ambitions", stresses the Paris-based manager, who points to a weekend that is "already decisive".

Today's markets are likely to be little moved by caution on the eve of the publication by the US Department of Labor of its monthly report on consumer prices, which may have held up well in July.

As usual, investors will be looking for the long-awaited inflection point in the tightening of monetary policies, as signs of slowing inflation multiply.

A series of data from the USA recently suggested that inflation could soon be close to the Federal Reserve's 2% target, without the need for a recession.

These figures showed that inflation fell to just 3% in June, a deceleration which confirms the possibility of the 'soft landing' hoped for by the markets.

The only indicator on today's agenda, US oil inventories, will be published in the afternoon.

In the meantime, oil prices are consolidating after benefiting from a bullish momentum which has enabled them to recover some 20% in just over a month.

Brent crude is currently down 0.2% at around $86 a barrel, while US light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) is also down 0.2% at $82.7.

On the fixed-income markets, there is also a lull after last week's heatwave, with the yield on 10-year Treasuries returning to 4% in a climate of caution that is leading investors to prefer safe-haven assets.

The German 10-year bond, which was getting dangerously close to all-time highs at 2.60%, is now down just as sharply, at 2.46%.

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