After spending the morning close to equilibrium, the Paris stock market slumped in the second half of the session: at the final gong, the Paris index lost 0.91% to 6965 points, weighed down by Saint-Gobain (-4%), Schneider Electric (-3.2%) and Eurofins Scientific (-2.6%).

Good Chinese growth figures (+4.9% in the third quarter, according to the State Bureau of Statistics) were not enough to offset persistent tensions in the Middle East.

In addition to the cancellation of scheduled meetings between Joe Biden and his Jordanian and Egyptian counterparts, confusion continues to surround the explosion of a hospital in the Gaza Strip. For the time being, these factors cloud any prospects of a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

These tensions favor safe-haven assets such as gold, which climbed to 1945 dollars an ounce (+1.3%), a one-month high.

The bond market - on the other hand - is paradoxically not serving as a safe haven, with the yield on 10-year US Treasury bonds jumping +7pts to 4.92%. The yield on two-year US Treasuries has reached 5.238%, a new high since 2006, while the 30-year is back over the 5% mark with +7pts to 5.02%.

Tension is also palpable in Europe, with +5.2pts on our OATs to 3.562%, +4.5pts on Bunds to 2.927% (3.000% is in sight)... and Italian BTPs show +9.8Pts at 4.998% (the 5% test is imminent).

On the quarterly front, investors will be following the much-anticipated post-closing releases from Tesla and Netflix later this evening.

On the statistics front, investors took note of the eurozone's annual inflation rate. According to Eurostat, it stood at 4.3% in September 2023, compared with 5.2% in August. A year earlier, it was 9.9%.
The annual inflation rate for the European Union was 4.9% in September 2023, compared with 5.9% in August. A year earlier, it stood at 10.9%.

Across the Atlantic, housing starts rebounded in September in the USA, suggesting that the US economy remains buoyant despite the impact of rising interest rates.

According to data released this Wednesday by the Commerce Department, housing starts rose by 7% last month on a seasonally-adjusted basis, to an annualized rate of nearly 1.36 million.

On an annualized basis, i.e. compared with September 2022, housing starts were down by 7.2%.

Single-family housing starts - which account for the bulk of the residential real estate market - rose by 3.2% to 963,000.

On the other hand, the number of building permits fell by 4.4% to an annualized rate of 1.47 million.

Finally, crude oil prices are back on the rise, with the price of a barrel of Brent topping $91 (+0.5%).

Oil could rise durably if the United States decides to step up sanctions against Iran - a country suspected of having given its backing to Hamas attacks", point out the teams at DeftHedge, a specialist in currency and commodity risk management.

In other French news, Lagardère Travel Retail, one of the two branches of the Lagardère Group, announced that it had signed an agreement with Kastrati to develop Duty Free activities at Tirana airport (Albania) and in the country's main tourist sites.

Spie announced on Wednesday that it would be strengthening its collaboration with Dutch company MCS in the field of private LTE and 5G networks.

SNCF Voyageurs and Alstom present the first of five battery-powered trains ordered by the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Hauts-de-France, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Occitanie Pyrénées-Méditerranée and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regions.

On Wednesday, Safran announced the signature of a service contract with the Tarmac Aerosave group, which specializes in aircraft storage, maintenance and dismantling.

Finally, the startup 3IPK and Thales Alenia Space have been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA), as part of the FutureEO program, to develop a solution for managing the traceability and integrity of Earth observation data using blockchain technology.

Copyright (c) 2023 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.