The Paris Bourse is still going nowhere for the 3rd session in a row, but the CAC40 is holding above the 7,200 mark, with a small rise of 0.2% thanks to the rise in auto parts manufacturers... in volumes once again below 1.2 billion Euros at the end of 8 hours of trading.
The Euro-Stoxx50 also posted a gain of +0.1% in the wake of Wall Street, which reversed course and returned to slight positive territory (+0.2% on the Dow Jones, +0.3% on the S&P and +0.6% on the Nasdaq).

The entire automotive sector was back in investors' favor as Swedish supplier Autoliv (world leader in airbags and seatbelts) announced that it would continue to apply price increases to its automaker customers.
But it has also announced that it will cut 8,000 jobs (11% of its workforce) worldwide to reduce costs: is this the start of a wave of redundancies that will improve the sector's profitability?

On the statistics front, the US weekly unemployment figures are rather surprising, but they must be 'restated': the number of new benefit claimants jumped by +28,000 in the week to May 29, to 261,000 from 233,000 the previous week (revised from 232,000), according to the Labor Department.

This is the highest number of new weekly registrations since the week of October 30, 2021, which saw 264,000 new applications, the report said.

In addition, the four-week moving average - considered a better indicator of the underlying trend in the job market - shows a week-on-week increase of 7,500 registrations, to 237,250.
But in reality, these are 'restated' figures (methodological correction) which may not validate a deterioration in the labor market.

There was little reaction on the bond front, and in fact a slight upturn took hold (after a poor end to the day on Wednesday, when the Bank of Canada unexpectedly raised its key rate from 4.50% to 4.75%.

In its press release, the central bank justified its decision by the persistence of high underlying inflation.

The big question now is whether the Fed will follow suit with another hike next Wednesday, or leave rates unchanged after ten hikes in a row", asks Jim Reid, strategist at Deutsche Bank.

Yesterday, government bond yields had incorporated the risk of tightening monetary policies by the major central banks until mid-summer.
The 10-year US Treasury bond fell back slightly, from 3.783% to 3.75%.
The trend was similar in Europe, where the German 10-year bond fell back -3pts to 2.413%, while the French OAT with the same maturity fell back 3.5pts to 2.9640%.
The eurozone economy contracted slightly in the first quarter, according to gross domestic product figures published Thursday by Eurostat. In the first three months of the year, seasonally-adjusted GDP fell by 0.1% in the region, according to an estimate by the European Union's statistical office.

On the currency markets, the euro continued its recovery (+0.7%) against the dollar, to around $1.0772, with traders expecting the ECB's aggressive policy to continue to support the European currency.

On the energy front, oil prices are easing, as Saudi Arabia's decision to cut production from July onwards has done little to stem the fall in barrel prices.

The price of a barrel of US light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) dropped 0.4% to below $72.3, while Brent dropped more than 0.3% to below $76.6.

This phenomenon of falling oil prices, while production continues to ease, could at some point raise fears about global demand and therefore the strength of the economy", says Vincent Boy, market analyst at IG France, in his latest weekly update.


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