(News Bulletin 247) – The Paris Stock Exchange posted another decline this Friday at mid-session, still cooled by American inflation. Sartorius Stedim Biotech stumbles after a new profit warning, the second of the year.

The Paris Stock Exchange continues its decline, still digesting the American inflation figures published Thursday which disappointed investors.

At midday, the CAC 40 accelerated its decline and lost 1% to 7,037.96 points the day after a drop of 0.4%. For now, the flagship Parisian index is now losing 0.3% on a weekly basis.

Fears about inflation are growing again as oil prices are soaring again, with the market fearing that the conflict in the Middle East will spread to neighboring oil-producing countries. A barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in December rose 3.67% to $89.16. Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), for delivery in November, rose 3.80% to $86.06.

On Thursday, the American inflation figures had already brought their share of disappointments. Consumer prices in the United States rose 3.7% year-on-year, stable compared to the previous month, but a little above the consensus (3.6%). The “core” index, excluding energy and food prices, is up 4.1% over one year, this time in line with economists’ expectations.

“The overall picture is that the trend is still quite encouraging, but the struggle continues,” summarizes Olu Sonola, head of US regional economics for Fitch Ratings cited by Reuters. “The rise in house prices this month was the main surprise, and these prices will have to fall sharply over the coming months for inflation to approach 2%,” he adds.

For its part, the Bank of England indicated that maintaining a restrictive monetary policy was necessary to bring inflation back to its target of 2%, while it stood at 6.7% in August.

In the afternoon, the President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde will speak and then the Michigan consumer confidence index will be published at 4 p.m. in the United States.

In corporate news, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup will publish their quarterly results before the opening of the American markets.

Sartorius Stedim Biotech on the mat

Sartorius Stedim plunges more than 13% after again issuing a warning on its results, the second after that of last June.

Alstom lost 4%, while Moody’s lowered the rating of the railway equipment manufacturer from “stable” to “negative”, which however constitutes a lesser evil for the group which recently stunned investors by warning that he would burn cash in his current financial year.

Thermador Groupe gives back 11%, the Isère specialist in the import and wholesale of faucet items has delivered cautious outlooks after showing an organic decline in its revenues in the third quarter.

On the foreign exchange market, the euro lost 0.1% to 1.0523 dollars.