(News Bulletin 247) – The Paris index is enjoying a bit of respite at the start of a busy week in terms of corporate results and major macroeconomic indicators.

The Paris Stock Exchange is doing better, taking advantage of cheap buybacks to restore its health, after losing nearly 2.5% over the whole of last week.

The CAC 40 recovered 1.16% this Monday, after gaining up to 1.53% in the afternoon. The day’s increase is more than enough to support the advance of the Parisian index beyond 7,600 points, since it ended its run at 7,622.02 points on Monday evening.

American politics dominated the discussions on Monday. On Sunday, outgoing US President Joe Biden announced that he was giving up his bid for a second term. His vice-president, Kamala Harris, has declared herself ready to replace him and has received many endorsements, including from Joe Biden himself. The Democratic candidate will be chosen at a convention scheduled from August 19 to August 22 in Chicago.

“From the markets’ point of view, this fairly rare political event – since we have to go back to 1968 with President Johnson to see this type of withdrawal – adds volatility at the very moment when the economic situation is showing signs of slowing down while the announcements of quarterly results are also showing some signs of weakness, particularly in the consumer sector,” estimates Michaël Nizard of Edmond de Rothschild AM.

This announcement may have benefited European indices. “In the short term, in connection with Biden’s withdrawal, it would not be surprising to see a slight catch-up of European risky assets compared to the United States after several weeks of clear underperformance,” estimates Michaël Nizard. “Because in fact, several econometric studies show significant impacts on European growth, of the order of 1%, in the event of a resurgence of strong trade tensions linked to Trump,” he adds.

A whirlwind of publications to come

Several key indicators will be published this week, including US GDP for the second quarter on Thursday and the PCE index in the United States, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge for measuring inflation, the following day.

Investors will have to digest a torrent of publications, especially in Paris. No fewer than 25 CAC 40 companies will publish their first-half results this week, including 13 on Thursday, July 25 alone.

For the moment, the real estate companies Icade and Covivio published their accounts this Monday morning, passing the test rather well, since Icade progressed by 4.3% and Covivio by 1.1%.

Apart from the results, Vivendi (-0.6%), for its part, gave more details on its plan to split into four listed groups, planning to list Canal+ in London and Havas on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

Valneva jumped 5.7% after securing new funding to support clinical trials in vulnerable populations such as children and pregnant women, and to make its vaccine accessible to low- and middle-income countries in Asia.

On other markets, the euro is almost stable against the dollar, falling by 0.03% to 1.0882 dollars. Oil is consolidating a little. The September contract on North Sea Brent is down by 0.5% to 82.19 dollars per barrel while that of August on WTI listed in New York is back up 0.6% to 78.19 dollars per barrel.