(News Bulletin 247) – The Paris Stock Exchange ends its run in positive territory, at the end of a week marked by the monetary decisions of the main central banks. The CAC 40 therefore rose by 0.3% and broke a record close.

This session of the four witches – an exceptional stock market day during which four types of derivative products expire simultaneously – was not nightmarish for the Paris Stock Exchange, which ended the week up. The CAC 40 thus closed up 0.28% below 7,600 points at 7,596.31 points this Friday evening. But it is a new historic closing record (the session record, which dated April 24, 2023, having been broken this Thursday, December 14 with a high of 7,653.99 points). The previous closing record dated April 21 at 7,577 points.

The flagship Parisian index had nevertheless gained almost 0.9% at the highest of the session, driven by a deterioration in private activity in the euro zone in December. Enough to fuel market hopes for rate cuts in Europe next year.

But its progress was slowed by statements from the president of the New York Fed. The latter declared that the members of the monetary policy committee were not, for the moment, “really talking about rate cuts at the moment,” on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

“We are very focused on the question before us, which is, as Chairman Powell said, whether monetary policy is tight enough to get inflation back to 2%. That is the question at hand. to us,” he said. These statements therefore contradict the words of Jerome Powell, who admitted on Wednesday evening that members of the Fed had discussed rate cuts.

But that did not prevent the CAC 40 from gaining 0.93% weekly, and from a fifth week in positive territory. This has not happened to the Parisian star index since April.

It must be said that central banks have clearly dictated the trend in recent days on the stock market. Three of them have delivered their last monetary policy verdict for the year 2023, with clearly divergent opinions for the future.

If the announcements from the American Federal Reserve (Fed) were well received on Wednesday evening, on the other hand the European Central Bank gave a firm speech on the evolution of rates, indicating that the members of the ECB had not discussed rate cuts.

For its part, the Bank of England prefers to delay before opting for rate cuts. Inflation in the country certainly fell to 4.6% year-on-year in October, but it still remains high to the liking of the monetary institution which hopes to bring it back to its target of 2%.

Atos awakened by Airbus

On the corporate front, Atos rebounded by 20.5% after Airbus showed interest in the group’s cybersecurity division with a view to its takeover, according to information from Le Figaro.

STMicroelectronics increased by 2.7%, supported by UBS which returned to purchasing the stock for the first time since 2020. The Swiss bank judges that the transformation of the Franco-Italian group is “undervalued”.

On the small and mid-cap side, Chargeurs soared by 30.7% to match the price of the takeover bid launched by its director Michaël Fribourg.

On the other hand, Focus Home collapsed by 32.2%, after seeing its half-year accounts fall into the red, penalized by sluggish sales of its game Atlas Fallen.

On the foreign exchange market, the euro lost 0.8% against the dollar to 1.0904 dollars. Oil has turned lower. The February contract on North Sea Brent lost 0.07% to $76.56 per barrel, while that of January on WTI listed in New York lost 0.2% to $71.42 per barrel.