The Paris Bourse is set to open with little change on Monday morning, after investors concluded from the Federal Reserve Chairman's latest comments that there would be no immediate monetary easing measures.

At around 8:15 a.m., the future contract on the CAC 40 index was up six points at 7,610 points, pointing to a very slightly higher start to the week, or even around equilibrium.

In an interview broadcast yesterday on the weekly TV program '60 Minutes', Jerome Powell reiterated his statements of last Wednesday, according to which a rate cut in March was not the institution's central scenario.

The Fed boss also endorsed the 'dot plot' provided at the end of last December's meeting, which called for three rate cuts this year", commented Danske Bank.

"By way of comparison, financial markets are currently expecting five rate cuts in 2024", the Danish bank points out.

Powell emphasized the robustness of the economy, the strength of the job market and added that the diagnosis he made at Jackson Hole in August 2022, namely that rate hikes would penalize economic activity, had not materialized to date", the Scandinavian bank points out.

The Fed Chairman's statements may not come as a great surprise, but they do bolster the dollar and US bond yields, with ten-year paper climbing back above 4.03%.

With the meetings with the major central banks now behind us, the earnings season should monopolize investors' attention this week, in the absence of any major economic statistics.

Caterpillar and McDonald's results will be released at lunchtime today, before those of Eli Lilly, Spotify, Ford, Uber and Disney, scheduled for the coming days.

Should earnings surprise on the upside, this would help to reassure investors a little more about growth, and enable US equity markets to seek new record highs.

Several European heavyweights such as bp, TotalEnergies, Equinor, Carlsberg, L'Oréal, AstraZeneca, Siemens, Unilever, Kering, ArcelorMittal and Hermès will also be unveiling their accounts in the next few days.

The economic agenda will be quieter, although the final PMI services and composite indices in Europe will liven up the session today.

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