The Paris Bourse ended the final session of the week with a modest gain of 0.42%, at 7111 points, helped by the performances of URW (+4.6%), Stellantis and Alstom (+2%). The Paris index lost nearly 2.8% over the past week, but has maintained a gain of close to 10% since the start of the year.

With less than 2.8 billion euros of trading volume, the session was relatively quiet. The long-awaited publication of the NFP was a non-event: US job creation in June came in well below expectations (209,000 vs. 245,000 expected), contradicting yesterday's ADP data (+495,000).

It should be remembered that yesterday's fall in stock market indices was accompanied by a sharp rise in bond yields on the prospect of a tightening of the Fed's monetary policy.

The markets should have been reassured this Friday, but the NFP had no noticeable effect: neither stock indices nor bond markets have rallied since 2.30 pm.

Quite the opposite, in fact, with the CAC40 erasing half of its gains posted around 2.15pm, OATs and Bunds continuing to deteriorate or struggling to ease, and the week ending with a tension of +25Pts to +30Pts (for Italian BTPs), i.e. taking into account a possible further rate hike this autumn.

T-Bonds even rocketed from 4.04 to 4.10%, before falling back to 4.043%, while the 2-year has just reached 5% for the 1st time in 17 years.

The Paris market had a difficult week, characterized by four sessions in the red (for a cumulative decline of around -3.8%), a consolidation movement which finally led it to break through its major support of 7,350 and then 7,150 points.

For several months now, some analysts have been worrying about the "cognitive dissonance" of the markets, which prefer the "rosy" scenario of no recession ("soft landing") and rapid normalization of inflation.

Job creation in the US slowed sharply in June, but the unemployment rate eased to 3.6% (from 3.7% in May) and wage increases exceeded expectations, revealing a still-contrasting picture of the labor market.

The number of jobs created last month was 209,000, whereas the market was expecting 245,000. On the other hand, statistics for May and April were revised downwards, from 339,000 to 306,000 and from 294,000 to 217,000 respectively (i.e. -110,000 in total).

Average hourly earnings rose by 12 cents, or 0.4%, to nearly $33.6, giving an annual salary increase of 4.4%.

The morning's figures had little impact on the CAC: France's trade balance stood at -9.2 billion euros in May 2023, according to the French Customs Department. It was stable over the month, after recovering by 0.3 billion euros in April.
Imports and exports both rose by 0.4 billion to 60.5 billion euros and 51.3 billion euros respectively.

France's current account balance recorded a deficit of 700 million euros in May, following a revised deficit of 1.7 billion euros in April, according to CVS-CJO data published Friday by the Banque de France.

On the currency front, the euro resumed its climb to 1.0950, up 0.5%, while gold held up well, even recovering 0.3% to $1923 an ounce.
In French company news, Airbus announced that it had delivered 72 aircraft to 48 customers in June 2023. The number of gross orders in June 2023 is 902 aircraft.

Canada and Ontario announced on Thursday that they would provide Stellantis and LG with a subsidy of up to $15 billion to resume their 'gigafactory' project in the country.

TotalEnergies inaugurates the largest solar power plant in Ile-de-France, as well as a battery energy storage park, on the Grandpuits site. With a surface area of 12 hectares and a capacity of 25 megawatt-peak (MWp), the Grandpuits solar power plant generates 31 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of green electricity annually.

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