After consolidating at the start of the week, the Paris Bourse rallied a little, gaining 0.5% around 7,500 points, as a flurry of quarterly corporate results fed the market, with sometimes paradoxical reactions to solid, even record-breaking figures (ST-Micro fell -9%).

Recent concerns about the health of banking institutions have shown just how fragile the turnaround achieved since the start of the year remains...but the collapse of First Republic in the USA (and a historic bank run weighing down regional banks) is not causing a stir on Wall Street.
The US markets opened positively, particularly the Nasdaq (+1.1%), which was boosted by a +14% surge in META (better-than-expected quarterly results published last night).
The S&P500 posted +0.6% and the Dow Jones +0.4%, gains comparable to those of the European indices since this morning (the E-Stoxx50 is up +0.4%).
London stood out with a lone decline of -0.1%.

At 2.30pm, investors were treated to the eagerly-awaited first figures on US GDP for the first quarter.
US GDP rose by just 1.1% annualized in the first quarter of 2023, according to the Commerce Department's very first estimate: a score far removed from the consensus of a decline of -0.6% to 2.00%.
Momentum ran out of steam towards the end of the quarter, and March's weakness should weigh on the calculation of quarterly consumption for the second quarter of 2023, which we currently forecast at 0.5% quarter-on-quarter', warns Tiffany Wilding, economist at the asset manager.

In the Eurozone, economic sentiment indicators (ESI) were broadly unchanged in April 2023 compared with March, at 97.3 for the European Union as a whole, and up just 0.1 points to 99.3 for the Eurozone alone.
However, this did not prevent a +4.5pt deterioration in OATs, which are now 'hanging on' to 3.00%, while Bunds have tightened by +5.5pts to 2.44%n, and T-Bonds have climbed to 3.50% +7pts.
On the currency markets, the euro lost 0.3% against the dollar and weakened to 1.1000 against the European currency.

Oil prices, still affected by the worsening economic outlook, began an unconvincing rebound, with a barrel of US light crude (WTI) timidly recovering 0.3% to $74.6.

In French company news this morning, STMicroelectronics reported net income up 39.8% year-on-year to $1.04 billion, or $1.10 per share, and an improved operating margin of 3.6 points to 28.3%, for the first three months of 2023.

Sanofi reports business EPS of 2.16 euros for the first three months of 2023, up 11.3% gross and 11.9% at constant exchange rates, on net sales of over 10.2 billion euros, up 5.7% (+5.5% at constant exchange rates).

Pernod Ricard posted sales for the first nine months of the 2022/23 financial year up by 13% to 9.51 billion euros, thanks to organic growth of 8% and a strong price effect in all regions, which reached +9% at group level.

Finally, Schneider Electric is raising its 2023 target, now expecting organic growth in adjusted EBITA of between +16 and +21%, thanks to organic sales growth of between +10 and +13% and an organic increase in the adjusted EBITA margin of between +100 and +130 bp.

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