The Paris Bourse is expected to open hesitantly on Tuesday, with investors still looking for direction in a context of caution ahead of several important economic meetings.

At around 8:15 a.m., the 'future' contract on the CAC 40 index - August delivery - clawed back three small points to 7257.5 points, suggesting a cautious start to the session.

Worry, fear, apprehension... there is no shortage of adjectives used by managers and analysts to describe the complicated times currently facing the world's stock markets.

After hovering around its equilibrium point for a long time, the Paris market plunged back into the red yesterday, ending the session down 0.3% at 7,250 points.

The same was true of Wall Street, which was once again indecisive on Monday, with the Dow Jones down by around 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced by 0.2%.

After a strong first half of the year, investors still seem to be catching their breath as we enter a second half of the year that could prove even more turbulent.

A few statistics on the labor market have recently been enough to raise fears of a marked slowdown in US growth over the coming months, or even a possible slide back into recession.

A wait-and-see market is rarely a bull market", reminds Christopher Dembik, Investment Strategy Advisor at Pictet AM.

Several crucial questions remain unanswered: how will the US economy evolve over the coming months, and how will the Fed react to the slowdown in activity that lies ahead?

"The publication of US producer prices will give a foretaste of the consumer price figure, which is the highlight of the week", stresses Christopher Dembik.

We should also add that Home Depot's results today will be closely scrutinized by analysts, as this is an imperfect but important barometer of American consumer behavior", adds the analyst.

"Poor figures are likely to be harshly punished by the market", warns Pictet's strategist.

Another eagerly-awaited indicator is US retail sales, due on Thursday, which should test the strength of US household consumption, the main driver of the country's growth.

This time, good figures could act as a positive catalyst for the markets, suggesting that their downward revision of forecasts may have been excessive.

But some observers are still cautious, believing that concerns about the health of the US economy will persist and that the current slowdown will continue

Against this backdrop, yields continue to ease, betraying a flight to quality ahead of the release of crucial indicators in the second half of the week.

The yield on ten-year Treasuries is back to around 3.90%, an almost one-year low, while the yield on German ten-years stands at 2.22%.

Currency markets also remain focused on the forthcoming indicator releases, with the euro nibbling 0.1% against the dollar, above 1.0940.

The oil market is back on a downward trend due to concerns about the state of the US economy, which could lead to a decline in demand.

Brent crude is down 0.8% to $81.6 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is down 0.7% to $79.5.

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