Will July end in unbridled euphoria?
What a reversal! The previous day, the CAC40 soared by +2.2% to 7,475, whereas at the same time the day before, it had sunk below 7,300.

Today, the CAC40 'Golbal Return' has smashed a new all-time record at 22,550Pts, 100Pts above the 22,430 of May 19, the best close having been registered on May 22 at 22.370... the index has plenty of room to run this Thursday).
The Euro-Stoxx50 is in line with the CAC40 with +2.2% at 4,444 (new annual and all-time record) and has gained +17% since January 1st, turning positive for the month of July as of this morning (clearing resistance at 4,410 on May 19, June 16, July 3 and 13).

Wall Street started the session on a high note, with the S&P500 up 0.6% (12th rise in 14 sessions) and the Nasdaq surging +1.3% in the wake of META, which has posted +8% and +90% since January 1

The previous day's air pocket seems to have been caused by US sales designed to support their own indices, with the Dow Jones posting its 13th consecutive session of gains (the highest since January 1987).
But here was the Dow Jones (+0.2% to 35,600, 2.3% off its record) up for the 14th session in a row (a feat not repeated since mid-June...1897, i.e. 126 years).
What's got Wall Street so euphoric?
It's not certain that "euphoria" has much to do with this somnambulistic rise; in fact, mistrust is at a maximum.

But precisely, this rise is fed by a permanent algorithmic counterpunch: the less favourable the circumstances (rates, liquidity, economic situation), the more sellers there are to take on!
On Wednesday evening, the Fed unsurprisingly raised its key rates by a quarter-point for the eleventh time in less than a year and a half, while leaving the door open to future rate hikes (rates are already at their highest since May 2001).

However, the Fed's intervention did not completely quash hopes that its prolonged monetary tightening cycle would soon come to an end.

"The Fed has kept open the possibility of further rate hikes, but any statement to the contrary would have come as a surprise", say the teams at Commerzbank.

"We believe that both the economy and inflation will slow down in the months ahead, which means that we have reached the ceiling in terms of interest rates", say the analysts.

In Europe, there were no surprises from the ECB either: up +25pts to 3.75% and preparing minds for a new round of tightening in mid-September, towards 4.00%.
The ECB judges that "European economic conditions are deteriorating and the outlook is uncertain": this was all it took to raise hopes that, faced with the risk of recession, the ECB might change its tune on rates (just like the FED, according to Wall Street expectations).
There were US figures on the agenda this Thursday: orders for capital goods rose by a much higher-than-expected 4.7% in June in the US (after +2% in June), testifying to the continuing strength of the US economy.

The Commerce Department points out that excluding transportation (mainly aeronautics), an indicator considered to be a good barometer of business investment projects, durable goods orders nevertheless rose by just 0.6% last month.

The civil aeronautics sector alone posted a 69.4% jump, with Boeing having previously reported 288 net aircraft orders in June, compared with just 63 in May, thanks in particular to the Paris Air Show.

The labor market continues to surprise with its strength: the number of jobless claims in the US fell by 7,000 in the week to July 17, to 221,000 according to the Labor Department.
The four-week moving average - considered to be a better indicator of the underlying trend in the job market - shows that the number of registrations fell by 3,750 on the previous week, to 233,750.
Finally, the number of people receiving regular benefits fell by 59,000 to 1,690,000 during the week of July 10, the most recent period available for this statistic.

Bond markets deteriorated this afternoon on both sides of the Atlantic after the FED and ECB meetings: the day had started well in the Eurozone, with yields easing sharply by -5pts on OATs and Bunds to 2.964% and 2.406% respectively, but all gains were wiped out and they returned to the previous day's levels of 3.01% and 2.455%, while US T-Bonds fell by +10pts to 3.953%.

As a result, the Euro fell sharply by -0.85% to 1.0995 and the Dollar Index rose overall by +0.7% to 101.62.

The European stock market is also animated by an impressive series of earnings releases, which will also have an effect on stock market trends.
In France, Air Liquide reports EPS up 32% for the first half of 2023, to 3.30 euros, with an operating margin (ROC on sales) of 17.7%, a strong improvement of 80 basis points excluding the energy effect.

TotalEnergies reports adjusted net income of $4,956 million for Q2 2023, compared with $6,541 million for Q1 2023. Adjusted fully-diluted earnings per share were $1.99 in Q2 2023, compared with $2.61 in Q1 2023, and $4.61 in H1 2023, compared with $7.14 a year earlier.

Renault Group reports net income (Group share) of 2.09 billion euros (or 7.70 euros per share) for H1 2023, and a record operating margin of 7.6%, up three points (including 6.2% for the automotive segment, up 4.1 points).

Finally, for the first half of 2023, JCDecaux reported net income, Group share, of 37.8 million euros, up 422.4%, and adjusted operating income before impairment charges of 12.5 million, up 170%.

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