After a gloomy morning, the Paris stock market regained its equilibrium by mid-day, before continuing its upward momentum in the afternoon. At the final gong, the Paris index was up 0.69% at 7,284 points, helped by Eurofins Scientific (+5.7%), Pernod Ricard (+2.3%) and TotalEnergies (+2%).

Across the Atlantic, Wall Street remained indecisive, with the Dow Jones up 0.4% and the Nasdaq down 0.6%.

On the statistics front, the consumer price index fell symbolically in the eurozone in February to 8.5% year-on-year, after 8.6% in January, according to Eurostat, but the decline was smaller than expected (due to the +15% surge in food prices).

The consensus was for inflation to fall from 8.2% to 8.3% (the process of disinflation since October's peak of 10.6% is therefore slowing).

'In view of the stronger-than-expected resilience of economic activity and the labor market, the scenario of "persistent" core inflation may well remain a major concern for the ECB, and markets are beginning to factor in further rate hikes', warns Danske Bank.

Investors also took note of a 1.7% annualized increase in non-farm productivity in the USA in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to a second estimate from the Labor Department, which had announced a rate of 3% on first reading a month ago.

This downward revision, stronger than economists had anticipated, is explained both by a lowering of output growth, to 3.1%, and by an increase in the number of hours worked, to 1.4%.

Taking into account a 4.9% increase in hourly wages (instead of 4.1% in the preliminary estimate), unit labor costs rose by 3.2% in the last quarter of 2022 (instead of 1.1% in the first reading).

In addition, US jobless claims fell by a further -2,000 to 190,000 in the week to February 25, according to the Labor Department.

The consensus was for a rebound of +3,000, to 195,000, and this is rather worrying 24 hours before the publication of the NFP (employment figures).

As an immediate consequence of these poor figures, the bond markets continued the downward trend which began in early February.
The US T-Bonds saw their yield jump by +6.5pts to 4.061%, with the '1-year' reaching 5.10% and the '6-month' 5.18%.

Our OATs add +2.5pts to 3.222%, Bunds +2.5% to 2.7360% and Italian BTPs +4pts to 4.604% (the October 2022 highs are getting closer).

In corporate news, Veolia reports net income before non-recurring items of 1.16 billion euros for 2022, up 29.7% (+27.7% at constant exchange rates), and EBITDA of nearly 6.2 billion, up 7.2% at constant scope and exchange rates.

Vallourec reports net income, Group share, of -366 million euros for 2022, compared with +40 million for the previous year, and EBITDA of 715 million euros, representing a margin of 14.6% compared with 14.3% in 2021.

SMCP (Sandro, Maje, Claudie Pierlot) reports, for 2022, a doubling of net income to 51 million euros and strong growth in adjusted EBIT to 111 million (9.2% of sales) from 96 million in 2021.

Technip Energies reports adjusted EPS of 1.79 euros for 2022, versus 1.39 euros the previous year, as well as an adjusted recurring EBIT margin up 50 basis points to 7% on adjusted sales down 4.6% to 6.42 billion.

Finally, Airbus announces that Lufthansa Group has signed an agreement for the purchase of ten additional Airbus A350-1000 and five Airbus A350-900 aircraft, an order which the European aircraft manufacturer believes will enable the company to move towards a decarbonization of its fleet.


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