The Paris Bourse ended the session down a limited 0.3%, at 7,230 points, at the end of a session marked by the release of the eagerly-awaited US inflation statistics (CPI).

While war has been declared on inflation on both sides of the Atlantic, the US consumer price index (CPI) showed an annualized rise of 3.7% last month, compared with 3.2% in July, when the consensus was for a rise of 3.6%.

But investors saw reason for hope in the fact that core inflation (i.e., excluding energy and food products) eased to 4.3% last month, compared with 4.7% in July.

Some economists believe that the slowness of this disinflationary process argues for the US Federal Reserve, which meets next week, to keep monetary policy in restrictive territory.

For others, on the contrary, the rate hike cycle is coming to an end, leading them to warn against excessive optimism should these figures surprise favorably.

Tomorrow, it will be the ECB that will be under particular scrutiny: the European central bank will unveil its monetary policy guidelines, torn between its objective of curbing persistent inflation and the need to revive stalled growth.

Deutsche Bank's strategists estimate that the probability of the ECB announcing a further 25 basis points of tightening tomorrow now stands at 53%, compared with 41% on Monday and 24% last week.

Against this backdrop, bond markets deteriorated slightly: our OATs and Bunds posted +2pts to 3.205% and 2.601% respectively. US T-Bonds show the same spread this evening, with +2Pts at 4.285%.

Oil prices are up moderately this Wednesday (+0.2% above $92/barrel for Brent), boosted by fears of a supply ceiling from producer countries, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia.

In other French company news, Eutelsat Communications announced that its two high-capacity satellites, Hotbird 13F and Hotbird 13G, had entered full commercial service.

Thales announced that it had carried out a real-life demonstration at sea of the mine location, identification and neutralization capabilities of the 'world's first complete and integrated unmanned mine countermeasures system'.

SES announced on Wednesday that it had teamed up with Starlink, the satellite communications system from Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX, to provide a joint connectivity offering for cruise passengers.

Vivendi announces a strategic partnership with Valiuz, described as 'the most powerful data retail alliance on the French market'.

Lastly, Alstom is the CAC's biggest decliner today (-3.9%), penalized in particular by an unfavorable note from Barclays analysts, who initiated their monitoring of the stock with an 'underweight' recommendation.

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