(News Bulletin 247) – The Paris Stock Exchange posted contained gains on Tuesday evening as banking authorities called for vigilance after the recent turbulence that disrupted the banking sector. Moreover, a small shock wave is spreading since searches were carried out within five banking establishments in France.

The Paris Stock Exchange manages on the wire to make the pass of two. Sharply higher in the first trade, the CAC 40 saw its lead shrink to 0.14% at 7,088.34 points at the close. The Paris star index even moved into negative territory after lunch.

The banking sector is once again tainted by searches within five financial establishments in France. BNP Paribas, Exane (a subsidiary of BNP), Société Générale, Natixis and HSBC are targeted in the context of preliminary investigations opened at the end of 2021 for tax fraud and laundering of tax fraud.

For their part, central bankers are calling for vigilance after the bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and the express takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS. The head of banking supervision in the euro zone, Andrea Enria, pleaded on Tuesday for “strong and demanding supervision” of banks after the recent turbulence that affected the sector.

For his part, the governor of the British central bank Andrew Bailey recalled that the bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank was the “quickest” since that of Barings Bank in 1995. According to him, the market is “testing” banks, as this was the case on Friday for Deutsche Bank and he does not rule out shocks of this nature in the future on the market.

“The dust hasn’t settled yet, but each passing day restores confidence and makes investors feel a little more relaxed,” said Craig Erlam, analyst at Oanda. The other side of the coin of this somewhat precarious appeasement on the banking sector, bond market yields are on the rise.

Investors are not losing sight of the evolution of monetary policies as several major statistics are on the agenda, including crucial data on inflation at the end of the week.

Banks in scattered order

Oil stocks are benefiting from the rise in black gold, supported by Turkey’s halt to oil imports from Iraqi Kurdistan. CGG gained 3.7% and Totalenergies +2.65%.

The rebound in banking stocks initiated on Monday came to a halt as the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office carried out several searches in five banking establishments as part of an investigation for aggravated tax evasion, including Société Générale (-1.1%) and BNP Paribas (+ 0.35%).

Valeo ends up 1.4% while the automotive supplier indicates that it is the French industrial group having filed the most patent applications in 2022 with the European Patent Office (EPO).

Lepermislibre took over more than 11% while a bill is being examined to facilitate access to driving licenses.

On the other hand, Orpea continued its slide (-7.4%) while the operator of retirement homes announced on Friday that it was the subject of an “accelerated safeguard” procedure before the commercial justice system.

On the currency side, the euro gained 0.3% to 1.0842 dollars.