(News Bulletin 247) – The Parisian index ended the day down 0.75%, moving away from 8,000 points. Investors opted for caution ahead of the European Central Bank meeting and the publication of important statistics in the United States.

The Paris Stock Exchange has not managed to extricate itself from its downward trend, as the headwinds have destroyed any hint of a rebound. The CAC 40 lost 0.75% to 7,937.90 points, just over twenty points from its daily lows.

Investors are on their guard after a series of disappointing indicators in the United States. Operators notably took note of a Jolts report highlighting a greater than expected drop in the number of job offers in April. Job openings rose to 8.059 million in April, compared to a Reuters consensus of 8.355 million openings.

Questions for the future

The ISM manufacturing index published on Monday was below expectations, with an index at 48.7 against expectations of 49.6. The threshold of 50 demarcates a contraction from an expansion of activity.

“Investors were disappointed by the latest series of American data which cast doubt on the health of the world’s largest economy,” comments Pierre Veyret, analyst at ActivTrades.

“Any employment figure (JOLTS, NFP (monthly report on American employment editor’s note), unemployment, etc.) or activity index (PMI, ISM, regional Fed index) is likely to cause the markets to react significantly in search of visibility on the trajectory of employment and inflation, the two mandates of the Fed”, warns Alexandre Baradez, head of market analysis at IG France.

Investors are especially awaiting the monetary policy meeting of the European Central Bank (ECB) on Thursday. A drop in rates has been recorded by the market but investors are mainly wondering about what happens next.

“Beyond June, it is difficult today to know exactly what the ECB will do before the end of the year. The risk of reflation has clearly increased,” explains John Plassard, investment advisor at Mirabaud.

According to a detailed article from Bloomberg, investors are lowering their expectations for a rate cut from the ECB. According to a questionnaire carried out by the agency, the majority of economists are counting on three rate reductions (around 70%). During a previous questionnaire, in April, half of them expected four or five reductions.

STMicro laughs with Geely

On the equity side, Totalenergies once again suffered the biggest drop in the flagship Parisian index (-2.4%), further penalized by a continued decline in oil prices.

The August contract on Brent from the North Sea lost 1.8% to 76.95 dollars per barrel while that of July on WTI listed in New York lost 2% to 72.69 dollars. The two contracts had already lost more than 3% on Monday, penalized by announcements from OPEC+, an extended cartel of oil exporting countries. The latter announced a timetable for removing production cuts from September.

The banks also suffered the blow, Société Générale lost 2% and BNP Paribas 1.8%.

STMicroelectronics managed to survive, posting the strongest performance in the CAC 40 (+1.9%), driven by the announcement of a contract with the automobile manufacturer Geely for the supply of silicon carbide.

Atos lost another 14.4% this Tuesday evening, undermined by Invest Securities which went to sale and which set its price target at 0.01 euros, i.e. the theoretical nominal value of the post-restructuring share.

In small and mid-caps, biotech Valbiotis suffered, collapsing 43.2% after announcing the end of its partnership with the Swiss group Nestlé.

On foreign exchange, the euro lost 0.2% against the dollar at 1.0881 dollars.