The Paris Bourse halved its gains in 1 hour (from +1% to +0.5% at 7,950, or -1.2% weekly): the CAC40 ricocheted below 8,000 after accelerating sharply upwards at 2:30 pm (publication of a mediocre NFP).
US indices also saw their gains melt from +1.2% to +0.8% (Dow Jones and S&P500), while the Nasdaq advanced +1.7% to $185, boosted by Apple's +7% after the announcement of the most titanic share buyback plan in the history of capitalism ($110 billion).
US indices began the session on a strong post-NFP uptrend, demonstrating once again that 'bad news is good news' when the main issue is once again the prospect of monetary easing by the FED (from September) and not the health of the US economy.
The 'NFP' (employment report) came in 30% below expectations: the US economy generated just 175,000 non-farm jobs in April, according to the Labor Department, well below market expectations, which had averaged around 250,000.000.

The unemployment rate rose by 0.1 points to 3.9%, where economists had hoped for stability at 3.8%, while the labor force participation rate held steady at 62.7%, and average hourly earnings rose at an annual rate of 3.9%.

In addition, non-farm payrolls for the previous two months were revised, from 270,000 to 236,000 for February and from 303,000 to 315,000 for March, for a total revision balance of -22,000 for these two months.
'Job creation was again surprisingly strong in the first quarter, with an average of 276,000 new jobs created per month', point out the Oddo BHF teams.
The latest NFP also rules out the risk of wage overheating, with hourly wages up 3.6%.

Growth in the US private sector slowed less than initially estimated in April, according to S&P Global's composite PMI, which came in at 51.3 on balance, against a flash estimate of 50.9, and after 52.1 for the previous month (traders will note that this is a decline of -0.8 over 1 month, which points in the direction of a slowdown).
Finally, activity in the US service sector fell back into contraction in April, for the first time since the end of 2022, according to the results of the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) monthly survey of purchasing managers.

After 15 consecutive months of growth, the ISM index measuring trends in the service sector dipped to 49.4 last month, falling back below the 50-point threshold indicating a downturn in activity, compared with 51.4 in March.
Bond markets applauded the day's 'weaker-than-expected' US figures, with the '10-yr' down -5pts to 4.52% (vs. 4.70% at the start of the week), the '2-yr' erasing -6pts to 4.816% (vs. 5.00% last Friday).
In Europ830% respectively.
The looming slowdown continues to weigh on the oil sector, with Brent crude losing a further 0.5% to $83.4 a barrel, or -6.5% on a weekly basis.
Gold briefly fell back below $2.300 at around 3:35 p.m. ($2,281), is now back up to $2,295, giving up 1.5% over the week.
The dollar is significantly weaker, down -0.4%, while the euro is up symmetrically to $1.0770.
Supporting the Paris stock market, Société Générale (-4.8%) this morning reported a 21.7% drop in net income, group share, to 680 million euros for the first quarter, well above the consensus forecast of only 475 million.

Crédit Agricole SA reports underlying net income (group share) up 54.7% to 1.93 billion euros for the first quarter of 2024, and underlying gross operating income up sharply by 36.1% to 3.15 billion.

Legrand (-2.5%) reports a 16.5% drop in net income (group share) for the first three months of 2024, to 275.9 million euros, with adjusted operating margin before acquisitions down 1.6 points to 20.6% of sales.

Maurel & Prom announces that the Board of Directors will finally submit a dividend of 0.30 euro per share for 2023 to the AGM on May 28, instead of the initial proposal of a stable dividend of 0.23 euro announced alongside its annual results.


Copyright (c) 2024 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.