(News Bulletin 247) – The Paris Stock Exchange should open lower on Wednesday morning in a market mainly driven by the spectacular avalanche of corporate results that is sweeping on both sides of the Atlantic.

Around 8:15 a.m., the futures contract on the CAC 40 index – May delivery – dropped 38 points to 7453.5 points, announcing the start of the session in negative territory.

The latest series of quarterly results does not seem to encourage investors to push the Parisian index higher after the series of records set in recent days.

Several CAC 40 stocks, such as Danone, Eurofins, Kering, Orange, Safran and Teleperformance, will be closely followed this morning after the publication of their first quarter activity figures.

Other European tenors of the caliber of Beiersdorf, KPN, Roche or Credit Suisse also unveiled their accounts last night or this morning.

In New York, the ‘futures’ signal for the moment a sharp rise in the opening for the Dow Jones as for the Nasdaq following quarterly results higher than expected published by Microsoft and Alphabet.

Microsoft reported yesterday evening a quarterly performance deemed ‘robust’ and the title gained 8.5% in electronic transactions, in particular in response to the dynamism of its branch ‘cloud’ Azure.

Alphabet is also expected to rise (+1.5% in after-market quotations) after having done better than expected in the first three months of the year, also thanks to the good performance of its activities in the ‘cloud’.

But the prospect of an imminent entry into recession for the American economy, confirmed by the cautious comments made by the two technological giants, continues to slow down the equity markets.

“In addition, several high-profile bankruptcies and concerns about commercial real estate suggest that accidents are to be expected,” said César Perez Ruiz, chief investment officer at Pictet Wealth Management.

In this context, investors are opting for a cautious approach, leading them to favor defensive stocks to the detriment of cyclical stocks, while commodity prices are falling.

On the oil market, crude prices are rising timidly pending the publication, in the afternoon, of weekly oil stocks in the United States.

The bond compartment, for its part, continues to benefit from its status as a safe haven, with a decline in the yield of ten-year Treasuries below the 3.40% threshold.

Apart from the numerous publications of results, market players will be attentive, at the start of the afternoon, to the publication of orders for durable goods in the United States.

With industrial confidence appearing to be at half mast, the trend for new US orders should turn increasingly downward over the next few months.

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