The Paris stock market shed 0.1% this morning, around 7560 points, as investors literally deserted the market, with less than 200 million euros traded in the first hour of trading.

The lack of activity typical of the holiday season does not call into question the quality of the 2023 stock market vintage, as the CAC is on course for a 17% rise this year.

The Paris market has been taking a break for several days now, in unremarkable volumes, following a series of record highs a fortnight ago in the wake of the Fed's change of strategy.

The CAC managed to surpass the 7,600-point resistance level before pulling back over the past two weeks, in an anemic end-of-year market.

Unlike in the United States, where the surge of the "Magnificent Seven" - AI-related stocks such as Apple and Microsoft - boosted the trend, the 2023 uptrend benefited almost all European sectors.

With a gain of 30% this year, the European technology sector nevertheless remains the big winner in 2023, ahead of industry (+29%) and agri-food (+26%).

This optimism has, however, been tempered by concerns over the apparent slowdown in growth, which in recent weeks has led many analysts to adopt a more cautious approach for 2024.

In a context marked by the absence of a large proportion of investors, the only macroeconomic news of the day will arrive at 2.30pm with the publication of US jobless claims.

Despite the good shape of the equity markets, government bond yields remain on a downtrend, continuing the trend seen since the end of October, fuelled by optimism about the evolution of monetary policies.

The yield on the ten-year German Bund is back to 1.91%, while its US equivalent is hovering around 3.82%.

On the foreign exchange market, the euro is still gaining ground against the dollar (at $1.113/E) and looks set to test its summer high of 1.1250 of July 14.

Gold - an inverse reflection of the greenback - is up 0.9% to reach new all-time highs of around $2075 an ounce.

In other French company news, Safe reports that its management began a full audit of the group on December 18, with a view to preparing a draft recovery plan, with the assistance of the court-appointed administrator, for presentation to the Pontoise Commercial Court.

Les Constructeurs du Bois announces the success of its capital increase with preferential subscription rights, for an amount of one million euros, at a unit price of 3.50 euros, resulting in the creation of 285,714 new shares.

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