The Paris Bourse is likely to open on a cautious note on Wednesday, with investors limiting their risk-taking just hours ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcements.

At around 8:15 a.m., the future contract on the CAC 40 index - February delivery - fell by eight points to 7,685.5, suggesting a slight consolidation after the new records set the previous day.

In the wake of Wall Street's cascade of all-time highs, the Paris market has just gained 4.5% in less than ten days, reaching an all-time high above 7,686 points yesterday.

A wait-and-see attitude is likely to prevail today, as the Fed announces the conclusions of its strategy meeting this evening after the Paris market closes, in a statement to be followed by a long-awaited press conference by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.

While the prospect of a 'status quo' is hardly in doubt, market participants will be watching the Fed chairman's remarks for any hints of future rate cuts.

"The Federal Reserve is likely to put a clear end to hopes of a near (March) and rapid rate cut", warns Emmanuel Auboyneau, associate manager at Amplegest.

From the professional's point of view, the Fed is likely to emphasize the resilience of the economy and the desire to continue the decline in inflation, which should have the effect of shifting the consensus for a first rate cut towards the end of the first half of the year, i.e. June.

Jerome Powell will try to calm things down, while keeping the door open for future meetings, depending on economic data", he explains.

In the meantime, the trend is likely to be heightened by the publication of Chinese indicators that have rekindled fears about the health of the global economy.

The purchasing managers' index (PMI) for China's manufacturing sector stood at 49.2 in January, compared with 49 last month, according to official data released on Wednesday, still reflecting a contraction in activity.

This indicator shows that the Chinese economy has had a sluggish start to the year, despite the support measures put in place by Beijing to stimulate growth.

In Europe, the morning will be punctuated by a whole series of statistics relating to inflation, industrial production and GDP in France and Germany.

Microsoft's decline (-0.3% in after-hours trading) - despite better-than-expected quarterly results - is also likely to weigh on US markets, especially as Alphabet (Google) has disappointed expectations.

"Between them, these two companies have a combined market capitalization of just under $5,000 billion, or 11.5% of the S&P 500," points out Jim Reid, market analyst at Deutsche Bank.

Their performances are therefore crucial for market trends, as are those of Apple, Amazon and Meta (which represent 13% of the S&P) and which will publish their results tomorrow evening", he adds.

Processor manufacturer AMD, meanwhile, last night unveiled an outlook deemed too cautious by investors, causing it to fall by more than 6% in post-market trading.

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