The Paris stock market is up by around 0.4% this morning, around 7105 points, benefiting from signs that tensions in the banking sector may be easing.

The Paris market got off to a rocky start this month, falling back below the symbolic 7,000-point mark for a while and erasing a large part of the gains made since the start of the year.

But the mood now seems to be easing, and European equities, which were largely neglected last year, remain among the best performers this year.

Against a backdrop of improving prospects, investors have spotted an opportunity in Europe, given the easing of the energy crisis, relatively attractive valuations in the region and the reopening of China", explains Antoine Lesné, Head of Research and Strategy at SPDR.

In Europe, the near-universal rebound is primarily benefiting banking stocks, whose STOXX index gained 1.4% yesterday, bringing its annual decline down to around 1%.

'No news, good news' remains a bit of a leitmotif in the European banking sector, but risk appetite is also being supported by positive developments on the other side of the Atlantic", point out analysts at Danske Bank.

Investor sentiment is benefiting from US bank First Citizens' purchase of all the deposits and loans of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which went bankrupt at the beginning of the month.

The rise in European equities is, however, being held back by a new episode of tension in the bond compartment, against a backdrop of renewed appetite for riskier assets.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the sell-off continued, with ten-year Treasuries yields rising once again to almost 3.53% yesterday.

Expectations of a 25 basis point rate hike by the US Federal Reserve in early May rose from 17% to 45% in the space of a weekend.

The dollar continues to fall against the euro, back to around 1.0820 against the greenback in the wake of yesterday's robust Ifo index.

Inflation remains a major concern, and as investors await further data on this front in both the eurozone and the US before the end of the week, they will be paying close attention to the publication this afternoon of the Conference Board's US consumer confidence index.

In French company news, Alstom announced on Tuesday that it had won a "major contract" in Hong Kong, where it has been chosen to supply the signalling system for a rail extension project.

Valeo announced that it is the leading French patent filer at the European Patent Office (EPO). The Group filed 588 patent applications in 2022. It is 31st in the world ranking of patent applicants in Europe.

Finally, French biotechnology company Nanobiotix postponed publication of its annual results on Tuesday, explaining that it needed time to finalize its year-end closing procedures.

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