(News Bulletin 247) – Back from a long weekend, the Paris Stock Exchange should open without much change on Tuesday morning, a large part of investors preferring to hold back pending the upcoming decisions of the Federal Reserve US and the European Central Bank.

Around 8:15 a.m., the ‘futures’ contract on the CAC 40 index – May delivery – fell just 0.5 points to 7463.5 points, announcing a very slight decline in the start of the session.

Penalized by renewed concerns about the banking sector, the Paris market had dropped 1.1% last week, which brought it back below the psychological threshold of 7,500 points, but the month of April nevertheless ended by a gain of more than 2%.

Opened yesterday, the New York Stock Exchange posted only a symbolic decline on Monday, operators having been rather reassured by the takeover of First Republic by JPMorgan Chase.

Despite the many concerns of the moment, the markets continue to show some resistance and the CAC has managed to save itself a fallout in downward movement by avoiding sinking below 7400 points.

From a technical point of view, the indicators remain rather well oriented, underline the analysts, who estimate that the CAC 40 could return to a new sequence of increases by recrossing the 7500 points.

The measures taken by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, then the European Central Bank (ECB) on Thursday, could be likely to fuel a surge in volatility in the markets.

While investors agree that the Fed is heading for another 25-point hike, its next decisions remain more unclear, even if the institution seems to be nearing the end of its monetary tightening cycle.

Given the persistence of inflation in the euro zone, the ECB could decide to opt for a more marked rate hike of 50 basis points.

Beyond the central banks, the equity markets will continue to react to the latest results of listed companies, while the publication ball is set to continue.

In Europe, the banking sector will be in the spotlight over the next few days, with announcements from HSBC (today) and BNP Paribas (Wednesday), among others.

Other industrial heavyweights such as Airbus, BMW, Infineon, Shell or Volkswagen have also planned to unveil their first quarter performance.

Apple, the world’s largest capitalization, will publish its quarterly results on Thursday evening.

Across the Atlantic, more than half of S&P 500 companies have already reported their quarterly accounts, and 79% of them have done better than expected in terms of their profits, according to data from FactSet.

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