The Paris stock market is attempting a new push towards 7,550: the CAC40 is posting a small gain of +0.15% towards 7,545, in volumes that are as non-existent as ever (barely 1.3 billion euros traded in 6.5 hours).
Still no real buyer flows, but zero sellers on the other side, the market seems to be rising "by inertia", perhaps helped by tactical buying at 48 hours by the "3 Witches", for an April stock market term that promises to take your breath away, with a gain of +9% since last March 17, the Euro-Stoxx50 (stable at 4.390, close to its all-time highs of early January 2022 and mid-November 2021) also posted a gain of over 8% in 1 month (from March 20 to April 19).
Wall Street has just reopened down with -0.4% for the Dow Jones, -0.5% for the S&P500 and -0.6% for the Nasdaq... which just seems to be holding back the advance of European indices.

At 11:30 a.m., traders discovered the publication of the final Eurostat consumer price index data for the eurozone for March: the annual inflation rate for the eurozone stood at 6.9% in March 2023, compared with 8.5% in February, and that of the European Union at 8.3%, compared with 9.9% (confirmation of the flash estimate for the eurozone in March).

The lowest annual rates were observed in Luxembourg (2.9%), Spain (3.1%) and the Netherlands (4.5%), while the highest were recorded in Hungary (25.6%), Latvia (17.2%) and the Czech Republic (16.5%).

In the eurozone, the biggest contributions to annual inflation came from food, alcohol and tobacco (+3.12 percentage points, pp), followed by services (+2.10 pp), industrial goods excluding energy (+1.71 pp) and energy (-0.05 pp).

While inflation in the region probably peaked last autumn, the disinflation process looks set to be slow, and high food prices could have a negative impact on consumption.

Global markets still don't seem to be alarmed by the prospect of a recession: the 'VIX' is falling back into the 17 zone on Wall Street, while a slowdown in activity is expected to materialize in the US before the end of the year, an unattractive prospect for equities.

With this in mind, the quarterly corporate earnings season which began last week promises to be tough for investors who would like to be reassured by the forecasts of listed companies.

On the bond front, our OATs added +4pts to 3.006% (+50pts in 3 weeks), Bunds +3pts to 2.5000% and US T-Bonds +4pts to 3.612%.

Oil is down -2% in London ($83) and in New York, gold is back below $2,000.

In French corporate news, Bolloré confirms that its Board of Directors, meeting on Tuesday, approved the launch of a simplified public tender offer (OPAS) for its own shares, a project announced on March 14.

Worldline and Crédit Agricole announce the signature of an exclusive non-binding negotiation agreement with a view to a strategic partnership that would 'create a major player in services for retailers in France'.

Alstom announces that it has been chosen by the Eurométropole de Strasbourg and the CTS to supply the new tramcars for the Strasbourg network, under an eight-year framework agreement worth up to 250 million euros.

Finally, according to Bloomberg, Veolia would like to sell Sade, its French subsidiary specializing in the design, construction, rehabilitation and maintenance of water networks and facilities.

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