(News Bulletin 247) – The Paris Stock Exchange is expected to be little changed on Thursday at the opening, with investors preferring to remain cautious before a four-day interruption due to the long Easter weekend.

Around 8:15 a.m., the ‘future’ contract on the CAC 40 index – due at the end of April – climbed 1.5 points to 7,325.5 points, signaling a slack start to the session.

All Euronext European markets will be closed tomorrow for Good Friday, and will remain so until Easter Monday inclusive, while the American markets will remain closed only this Friday.

Over this shortened week, the CAC has so far posted a score of almost zero, a sign of the uncertainties currently weighing on the economic outlook.

The approach of the Easter weekend should further limit investors’ appetite, as will the imminence of the publication of monthly US employment statistics, which will appear tomorrow.

This report should show a slower pace of hiring in the United States in March, with 225,000 job creations expected against 311,000 new jobs in February.

The statistic will be released as major global markets close for Good Friday, meaning market participants won’t be able to react to these numbers until after the Easter long weekend.

In Europe, the tone of this relatively sluggish day will be set during the morning by the figures for industrial production in Germany.

Despite the recent rebound in the automotive sector and the decline in energy prices, the indicator should have fallen in February, mainly under the effect of construction.

American investors are waiting for a single indicator, that of weekly jobless claims, with the hope that it does not confirm the hypothesis of a serious brake on the labor market.

The latest economic news has done nothing to incite optimism recently, with some analysts now expecting a deeper-than-expected US recession, possibly as early as the second quarter.

With the publication of disappointing macroeconomic indicators, the probability of another interest rate hike in May in the United States has decreased slightly, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch barometer.

The move away from a new Fed monetary policy is weighing on US government bond yields, a downward movement favored by the cautious approach ahead of the employment figures.

The yield on ten-year Treasuries is moving this morning around 3.28%, its lowest level since last September.

After getting closer again yesterday to the resistance of 1.1000 against the dollar, the single currency retreated over the hours and mixed statistics on both sides of the Atlantic, down to around 1.09.

The oil markets are also weakened by the fear that the current slowdown in the economy will turn into a global recession, with Brent yielding 0.4% this morning to rally to 84.6 dollars.

Copyright (c) 2023 News Bulletin 247. All rights reserved.