(News Bulletin 247) – The Paris Stock Exchange is marking time this Wednesday evening before the decision of the American Federal Reserve on its key rates. If a reduction is now a given, the markets are wondering about its extent, which weighed on the CAC 40 which closed down 0.6%.

The Paris Stock Exchange was on hold this Wednesday before the big event of the day, or even of this month of September, namely the monetary policy decision of the American Federal Reserve.

While the market has already priced in a first rate cut since 2020, the debate is over its magnitude: will it be 25 basis points (0.25 percentage points) or 50 basis points?

For the time being, investors attribute a probability of 43% to the first hypothesis and 57% to the second. Which shows that nothing is decided a few hours before the Fed’s verdict.

“We believe this is one of the few meetings where Fed policy will not validate (market expectations); we still expect a 25 basis point cut,” Barclays warned.

Market doubts about the extent of the coming decline have clearly weighed on the trend. As has the content of the Fed’s new economic expectations and especially the “dot plots”, which reflect the projections of the 12 voting members of the monetary institution on the level of federal rates.

The CAC 40 ended in the same shade that dominated the session, namely in the red, and therefore lost 0.57% to 7,444.90 points.

Carmat falls again

In terms of values, Thales recorded the biggest increase in the CAC 40 this Wednesday evening, thanks to a gain of 2%, after having lost 3.8% the day before, penalized, like the other defense groups, by speculations on a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.

Outside the CAC 40, Carmat fell by 14.2% after announcing a new capital increase which should enable it to finance its activity until the end of the year.

On other markets, the euro is stable against the dollar at 1.1113 dollars. Oil is falling. The November contract on North Sea Brent is down 0.9% at 73.03 dollars per barrel while the October contract on WTI listed in New York is also up 0.9% at 69.35 dollars per barrel.