The Paris Bourse ended the session with a gain of 1.21%, at 7300 points, benefiting in particular from the rebounds of Carrefour (+8.5%) and Kering (+3%) following their results.

After opening down by around -0.6%, Wall Street made up half its deficit with -0.3% on the S&P500 and Dow Jones, while the Nasdaq was close to equilibrium.

On the statistics front, investors have been treated to a flurry of figures from the USA since 2:30 p.m.

With the 1st surprise: US retail sales rose by 3% in January (vs. +2% expected), to $697 billion, according to the Commerce Department (they had recorded an unusual decline of 1.1% in December).

Excluding the automotive sector (vehicles and equipment), US retail sales rose by 2.3%.

Given that 70% of growth depends on household consumption "with the labor market still robust and savings plentiful, it may be premature to bury the American consumer", warn Oddo BHF economists.

On the other hand, US industrial production stagnated last month, according to the Federal Reserve, whereas economists were hoping for a rebound.

In detail, manufacturing output rose by 1% and mining and quarrying by 2%, while utilities output fell by 9.9% as weather conditions weighed on heating demand.

Production was nevertheless 0.8% higher than a year earlier. The industrial capacity utilization rate fell by 0.1 points to 78.3%, 1.3 points below its long-term average (1972-2022).

Activity in the New York region's manufacturing sector contracted again in February, but at a much slower pace than in January, according to the Federal Reserve's monthly "Empire State" survey: it stood at -5.8 this month, compared with -32.9 in January, but this came as a pleasant surprise since economists were forecasting a less significant improvement, to around -18.

Thus, the consensus for the Fed's 'final rate' is now mostly expected to be 5.50%, and 5.25% is no longer as consensual as it was two weeks ago.

In Europe, the eurozone's seasonally-adjusted trade balance stood at -18.1 billion euros in December 2022, down sharply on November (-14.4 billion), according to Eurostat.

Finally, growth in Europe has not contracted as much as feared, and the spectre of recession also seems to be receding in the USA... but bond markets continue to show a radical curve inversion, with a 125Pts 'premium' for the '6-month' T-Bond over the '10-year'.

The 10-year is up +3pts to 3.791%, the 6-month is stable at 5.02% and the 1-year is closer to 5.00%.

This morning, UK inflation came out at 8.8% year-on-year in January, marking a clear slowdown from December's 9.2%.

Gilts are easing a little (-6Pts to 3.46%) after a 6-session black streak and +50Pts of basis recovered.
OATs and Bunds are up slightly by +2.5 basis points this evening, at 2.93% and 2.47% respectively.

The Euro suddenly reverses course, falling back -0.6% to $1.0670, its lowest level for 1 week.

In company news, Kering (+3%) reported a 14% increase in net income (Group share) to 3.6 billion euros for 2022, and 11% growth in profit from recurring operations to 5.6 billion euros, representing a margin of 27.5%.

Carrefour (+8.5%) reported sales of 90.8 billion euros for 2022, up 8.5% on a comparable basis compared with the same period a year earlier. Net income (Group share) came to 1,212 million euros (+7.6%), representing an adjusted net income (Group share) up 14% to 1.63 euros, compared with 1.43 euros a year earlier.

La Française des Jeux (FDJ) reported a 4.7% increase in net income to 308 million euros, as well as a 13.1% increase in recurring EBITDA to 590 million euros, representing a margin of 24%.

Last night, OLGroupe unveiled the accounts for the first half of its 2022/23 financial year, which show revenues up 16% to 134.8 million euros. The soccer club points out that all revenue lines showed growth, despite not qualifying for the European Cup.

Finally, Total Eren announces its first wind power project in Honduras, "San Marcos", with a capacity of 112 MW, which will eventually generate around 500 GWh per year. This is one of the largest foreign investments in a renewable energy project in Central America, according to Total Eren.

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