(News Bulletin 247) – The CAC 40 has now closed the ball of annual company results. Which groups did the best in this test? To try to find out, News Bulletin 247 has compiled the stock market reactions following the publication of the companies’ annual accounts.

The ball of the annual results for the CAC 40 made its last notes, with the publications, Wednesday, of the accounts of Thales and Vivendi. The 38

groups communicating results for a classic calendar year have all returned their copies.

Which have obtained the satisfaction of investors? Conversely, which groups offended the market? In an attempt to provide some answers, we have selected the stock market reaction of their shares on the day of the publication of their results (see infographics below), or the next day for companies that communicated their performance after the close of the market, such as LVMH or Vivendi.

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As we explained in a previous point made halfway through the publications, this process has its limits, because the reaction of the stock market price can be influenced by the market conditions of the session. In an attempt to partially correct this effect, we have created a second infographic which measures the outperformance or underperformance of the stock during the session in question compared to the CAC 40. Clearly, if a share rises by 4% and the CAC 40 by 1% its outperformance is 3%. Obviously, this only partly corrects the problem, because a value often varies more strongly than an index, which is by definition diversified. Then because it can happen that investors anticipate good results in advance.

Dassault Systèmes at the top of the podium, Eurofins in the hard

TotalEnergies had seen its share jump 3.4% the day before its results, then regained 2.5% the day after the publication of its accounts, while the same day the value showed profit taking (-1, 9%). Another example: Publicis saw its results be welcomed on the day of their publication, but the value then continued to rise the following session, as certain analysts revised their estimates upwards, and even their recommendations.

In the end, a clear majority of companies (26 out of 38) recorded a positive reaction, which is not surprising since the good results of the companies were one of the engines which allowed the CAC 40 to exceed the highest in sessions lately.

The top 3, in both rankings, is the same. Dassault Systèmes sits at the top of the charts, the group having published impressive results and prospects, in particular on its license sales. Carrefour, with its strong cash generation, and STMicroelectronics, with its reassuring objectives, complete the podium, exchanging their second and third place according to the infographic.

The back of the peloton remains the same as well. Eurofins and EssilorLuxottica disappointed, either on their outlook for the first, or on their margins for the second. For Societe Generale, it was the return to shareholders that proved to be lower than expected, with in particular share buybacks significantly lower than expected by analysts.

Honorable mention for Saint-Gobain which fails at the foot of the podium in terms of outperformance, with a record publication on all floors. The building materials specialist had signed an increase of nearly 5% on a day when the CAC 40 lost nearly 1.8% – the worst performance of the index during a session following a publication – which constitutes a notable feat.