The CAC40 (+0.9%) crosses the 8,000 mark and climbs towards 8,025: the Paris Bourse is in a state of mild euphoria in reaction to Christine Lagarde's remarks at the end of her monetary policy meeting.
The Euro-Stoxx50 soars +1.1% to 4,970, with the 5,000 mark in sight.000 in sight in a few hours' time (or before the publication of the 'NFP' on Friday at 2.30 p.m.?).

The European Central Bank has indeed maintained - as expected - the deposit rate at 4%, but has reduced its inflation projections for the eurozone to 2.3% in 2024, 2% in 2025 and 1.9% in 2026.

Excluding energy and food products ('core inflation'), its underlying inflation assumptions have also been revised downwards, to an average of 2.6% for 2024, then 2.1% and 2% respectively for the following two years.
According to the teams at Muzinich, an asset management company specializing in credit, the overnight interest rate swap market estimates an 86% probability that the ECB will cut rates by 25 basis points in June.
This means that a rate cut is possible as soon as the FED has acted in this direction, probably as early as mid-June.
And an easing in the cost of money will come quickly, since the ECB has also lowered its growth projection for 2024 to 0.6%.

The eurozone economy should then recover, growing by 1.5% in 2025 and 1.6% in 2026, driven first by consumption and then also by investment.
Bond markets are also euphoric about the ECB's performance, with our OATs easing by -5pts to 2.735%, Bunds by -4pts to 2.2900%, and Italian BTPs by -6.5pts to 3.5950%.

Wall Street also started the session well up, with the S&P500 climbing +0.7% to 5,140: the index could set an all-time closing record (for an absolute record, we'll have to go for 5,150).
The Nasda-100 rose +0.8% to 18,160... 18,300 is not far off.
There were also several US figures: the US trade deficit widened to $67.4 billion in January, compared with the previous month's $64.2 billion (which was revised from an initial estimate of $62.2 billion), according to the Commerce Department.

This 5.1% month-on-month increase in the deficit reflects a 1.1% rise in US imports of goods and services, to $324.6 billion, while exports were almost stagnant (+0.1%) at $257.2 billion.
US productivity was revised to 'unchanged' at 3.2%, and weekly jobless claims were also virtually unchanged last week.

On the currency markets, the dollar strengthened slightly after the ECB meeting, and the euro fell by -0.1% to 1.089 against the dollar.
The general easing of interest rates (with the exception of T-Bonds, unchanged at 4.105%) propelled gold to new highs: $2.153/Oz.

On the energy front, the oil market stabilized after the previous day's surge, as the announcement of an anecdotal rise in crude oil inventories was accompanied by a decline in gasoline and refined product reserves.

Brent crude consolidated by 0.5% at around $82.4 a barrel, while US light crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) dropped 0.6% to $78.6.


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