(News Bulletin 247) – The Paris Stock Exchange begins the week with a clear decline, at the dawn of a busy week in company results. The CAC 40 lost 1% while almost half of its residents will publish results this week.

The Paris Stock Exchange is starting the week backwards after closing the previous week in positive territory. The CAC 40 fell by 1.01% at the close this Monday, to 7,536.23 points, in a market which continues to monitor the drip-and-drop announcements from China to boost its economy and meet its 2024 growth objective, around of 5%.

With this in mind, the People’s Bank of China, the Chinese central bank, announced on Monday the reduction of two key rates to support the economy.

Investors are also opting for caution as they prepare to analyze numerous company results. Half of the CAC 40 will reveal, this week, either its third quarter turnover or more complete results.

“This week, in addition to the numerous company results, we will closely follow the publication of the advanced PMIs for October on Thursday because they will help to judge the growth dynamic in the euro zone after a difficult summer. On the American side, the publication of Beige Book of the Fed (American Federal Reserve, Editor’s note) on Wednesday will be important for the members of the Fed”, underlines Xavier Chapard of LBPAM.

Forvia surprise of the day

On the value side, Totalenergies took the lead in the flagship Parisian index (+0.5%) in the wake of the good trend in oil prices. The December contract on North Sea Brent advanced 1.5% to $73.94 per barrel while the November contract on WTI listed in New York gained 1.5% to $69.72 per barrel.

The rise in black gold prices comes amid renewed tensions in the Middle East. Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hezbollah of attempting to assassinate him after a drone strike.

Essilorluxottica (+0.3%) and Renault (+0.20%) complete the day’s podium.

Conversely, Kering stumbled by 2.4%, penalized by a downgrade from Citigroup which downgraded its opinion to “neutral” from “buy” previously. The design office says it is worried about the group’s ability to turn around its flagship Gucci brand.

Excluding the CAC 40, Forvia rebounded by 5.25% after revealing reassuring activity in the third quarter, which pulled in its wake other automotive equipment manufacturers on the stock market such as OPMobility (formerly Plastic Omnium) which ended up by 3.1%.

Icade lost 1.9% after the publication of its nine-month activity report.

On currencies, the euro fell 0.4% against the dollar to 1.0822 dollars.