The Paris Bourse should see little change at the opening bell on Tuesday, after a very quiet start to the week due to the absence of American investors.

At around 8:15 a.m., the future contract on the CAC 40 index - March delivery - fell by 5.5 points to 7786.5 points, suggesting a stable or even slightly down start to the session.

After spending the whole day in negative territory yesterday, the Paris index had finished totally unchanged at 7768 points, in the absence of the US markets closed for President's Day.

The reopening of Wall Street after the long weekend is unlikely to revitalize the trend following the disappointment caused on Friday by higher-than-expected producer price figures in the USA.

One of last week's notable events was the return of inflation worries, and from this point of view, it's interesting to see that equity markets held up rather well", points out Danske Bank.

"With bond yields rising, it's not surprising to see value stocks outperforming and growth stocks underperforming", says the Danish bank.

Futures contracts on the main New York indices are currently pointing to a Wall Street opening down by around 0.2% for each of the major New York indices.

The only major economic indicator of the day, the Conference Board's index of leading indicators, will be published an hour and a half after the New York opening.

In China, stock markets were slightly buoyed by the announcement of a 25 basis point cut in the prime lending rate for loans of more than five years, on which many lenders base their mortgage rates.

Beijing hopes that this sharper-than-expected reduction will invigorate the credit and property markets, reduce financial costs for companies and individuals, and contribute to economic recovery.

After the Lunar New Year vacation, the Hang Seng index on the Hong Kong stock exchange nibbled away at 0.2% at the end of the session, while the CSI 300 index of large-cap stocks in mainland China gained 0.3%.

On the bond market, the yield on 10-year Treasuries continued to move, at 4.29%, to almost three-month highs in view of persistent inflation across the Atlantic.

This is supporting the dollar, buoyed by the fading prospect of further monetary easing by the Federal Reserve, and penalizing the euro, which is retreating towards 1.0773 against the greenback.

Forex traders are highlighting a "complicated" situation for the single currency, as the European economy remains depressed for the time being.

Under these conditions, the 2023 high of 1.1276 for the pair looks very clearly unreachable in the medium term", say the teams at DeftHedge, a specialist in decision support for currency and commodity risk management.

The oil market remains torn between hopes of a global economic recovery and fears of a slower-than-expected recovery in demand.

Brent crude is down 0.1% at $83.5 a barrel, but West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is up 0.3% at $79.5.

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