(News Bulletin 247) – The CAC 40 was reckless on Monday in the absence of Wall Street. The week promises to be busy with new corporate results and the minutes of the Fed’s last monetary policy meeting.

After gaining more than 3% last week and setting a record in session on Thursday, the Paris Stock Exchange limited initiatives on Monday. The CAC 40 lost 0.16% to 7,335.61 in the absence of the Wall Street compass, closed on Monday due to a holiday.

This decline may seem anecdotal when compared to what the CAC 40 experienced a year earlier. The Paris star index had then folded by 2%, in the face of heightened tensions in eastern Ukraine, even if the war had not yet strictly speaking broken out.

US monetary policy at the heart of stock market debates

US monetary policy will be the center of attention this week. On Wednesday, investors will take note of the minutes (minutes) of the last Fed meeting, and above all, on Friday afternoon, the PCE index, the US central bank’s preferred gauge for measuring inflation.

For the PCE index, “the ‘core’ index (excluding energy and food prices) will probably continue to confirm inflationary pressures in the short term. The consumer price index [IPC, NDLR] last week showed that they were still relatively broad-based, with the reduced mean and median of the CPI indicators rising the most since September,” Deutsche Bank said.

These two meetings will be all the more watched as at the end of last week, several statements by members of the Federal Reserve (Fed) pleaded for an increase in key rates of 50 basis points (0.5%) during of the March meeting.

The results of companies will still be numerous this week, with for example Engie, Stellantis, Eurofins, Bouygues, Capgemini or even Worldline on the CAC 40.

Forvia reassures on its debt reduction

In the meantime, Forvia, which brings together Faurecia (+2.25%) and its German subsidiary Hella, published its annual accounts on Monday with both a much higher than expected cash generation and the announcement of a project sale which will allow it to complete its asset sales program.

The property Icade (+0.4%) has, in addition to its annual accounts, announced that it would probably not go through an IPO to value the assets of its subsidiary Health, contrary to its initial plans.

Excluding publications, the very volatile Orpea gained 10.8%, followed by Eutelsat Communications (+7.3%) which had been shunned after its half-year results on Friday. On the other side of the spectrum, Casino Guichard lost 4.6%, followed by Air France-KLM (-3.7%) whose annual results were welcomed at the end of last week.

On the other markets, the euro is stable against the dollar at 1.0685 dollar. Oil contracts are progressing a little. The North Sea Brent contract rose 0.7% to 83.55 dollars a barrel, while New York-listed WTI rose 0.6% to 76.98 dollars a barrel.