The Paris stock market lost 2% and fell back to 7,000pts (after a foray to the green 6.970), weighed down by the fall in banking stocks, with Société Générale down nearly 7%, BNP Paribas down 5% and Credit Agricole down 4%, in the wake of Deutsche Bank (down 13% to 8.2E), which is suffering massive sell-offs (70 million shares in 6 hours, i.e. 10 trading sessions on average), while CDSs (debt insurance) are "predicting" a 33% risk of imminent bankruptcy!

The Euro-Stoxx50 is also down -2% to 4.120, as did Frankfurt, the epicenter of the new banking stress test that will involve the ECB (after the FED on Friday March 10, the SNB on Friday March 17).
On Wall Street, the indices reopened moderately lower, down from -0.4% to -0.5%, but the regional bank sector (50% of credit distributed in the USA) remains under pressure in the absence of a global solution, ruling out any systemic risk.

But it wasn't just Deutsche Bank that was on the menu on March 24: there were also figures from the US that don't point in the direction of rate easing by the FED.
According to S&P Global, growth in the US private sector accelerated sharply in March, with the composite PMI index reaching a 10-month high of 53.3 in flash estimates, after rising to 50.1 the previous month.
"Production grew at a solid pace as demand conditions improved and new orders returned to growth", explains S&P Global, which also points to an acceleration in selling price inflation.

On the downside, US durable goods orders fell by 1% last month, following a 5% drop in January (revised from an initial estimate of -4.5%).
The Commerce Department reports that while transportation equipment orders contracted by 2.8% month-on-month, US durable goods orders managed to remain more or less stable in February.

This morning, investors took note of the flash estimate for the S&P Global composite PMI index of overall activity in the eurozone. The index recovered for a fifth consecutive month in March, reaching a ten-month high of 54.1, compared with 52.0 in February.
Growth was again driven by the performance of the services sector, whose activity recorded its strongest expansion since May 2022. In the manufacturing sector, on the other hand, activity levels stagnated in March.
Fixed-income markets are benefiting from a climate of risk-off, and our OATs are down 8.5pts to 2.6300%, while Bunds are down 9pts to 2.0960%.

Across the Atlantic, T-Bonds are down 5pts to 3.355%... but this did not prevent the Dollar from recovering 0.8% to 1.0740 (it serves as a refuge in case of stress) and Gold from passing the symbolic $2,000 per ounce mark again (it is also a relevant refuge in the face of a climate of monetary 'all-in' by central banks).

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