After starting the year with three consecutive sessions of gains, taking 4.4%, the Paris stock market paused on Thursday, losing 0.5% around 6745 points.

Investors are reluctant to continue buying ahead of the deluge of indicators expected at the end of the week.

All eyes will now turn to the latest inflation figures for Europe, which now appear to be close to their peak, if they have not already reached it.

While awaiting consumer prices, which will be released tomorrow, investors will be following the evolution of producer prices in the Eurozone late today morning, which should confirm their recent slowing trend.

Although the same cannot be said for gas and electricity, fuel prices at the pump in Europe have almost returned to their pre-war levels in Ukraine.

Beyond the indicators expected on the Old Continent, Thursday will also be marked by a series of macroeconomic publications in the United States.

On today's agenda are, among other things, jobless claims, which have shown a timid recovery since this autumn, perhaps constituting a first sign of weakness in the labor market.

Investors will have even more indicators to get their teeth into tomorrow, with inflation figures in the euro zone and the closely watched US job creation figures.

On the energy market, oil prices are back on the rise ahead of this afternoon's release of US crude inventories, with WTI up 1% to $73.6 a barrel and Brent up 1.2% to $79.

In company news, Technip Energies reports that it has won a "major contract" (i.e. representing between 250 and 500 million euros in sales, according to the Group's terminology) for project management consulting (PMC) with Kuwait Oil Company (KOC).

Voltalia has announced that by the end of 2022 it will have a portfolio of power plants in operation or under construction totalling 2.6 gigawatts, a year ahead of its target, and that last year it won long-term power sales contracts for a total of 1.1 gigawatts.

Interparfums once again raised its sales forecast for the past year on Thursday, on the back of 'still high' demand and an 'extremely satisfactory' rate of delivery in the final weeks of the year.

Finally, Voyager Space announced on Wednesday that it would be collaborating with Airbus Defence and Space on the Starlab project, the future commercial space station to be developed in Earth orbit.

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