The Paris Bourse ended the session down 0.41%, at 7305 points, finally limiting the damage caused by Wall Street's downturn (-1.5% on the S&P500 and -1.9% on the Nasdaq) and the deterioration of the fixed-income market.

This morning, investors took note of some encouraging PMI indicators: the composite flash PMI index of global activity in France, calculated by S&P Global, rose from 49.1 in January to 51.6: the index is moving into positive territory for the first time since October 2022, recording its best score since last July.

However, business trends diverged markedly between sectors: manufacturers reported a fall in production for the ninth consecutive month, while service providers saw the first rise in activity for four months.

Meanwhile, the flash estimate of the S&P Global Composite PMI for the eurozone picked up for a fourth consecutive month in February, rising to 52.3 from 50.3 in January, signalling the strongest private sector growth since May 2022.

The day was also marked by the publication of the index measuring investor sentiment in Germany, compiled by the ZEW economic research institute.

OECD gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.3% quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2022, compared with 0.4% growth in the previous quarter, according to provisional estimates.

OECD quarterly growth rates remained weak throughout 2022 against a backdrop of high inflation and rising interest rates. In the G7, quarter-on-quarter GDP growth also slowed slightly in Q4 2022, to 0.4% from 0.5% in Q3 2022.

This result reflects a contrasting situation among G7 countries. On the one hand, growth turned negative in Germany and Italy (minus 0.2% and minus 0.1% respectively), and slowed to 0.4% in Canada and 0.7% in the USA.

On the other hand, GDP rose by 0.2% in Japan after a contraction of 0.3% in Q3 2022, and remained stable in the UK after a contraction of 0.2% in the previous quarter.

Initial estimates of annual GDP growth indicate that GDP continued to grow in the OECD zone in 2022 (2.9%), but at a more moderate pace than in 2021 (5.7%) when economies were recovering from the immediate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Finally, the US private sector managed to stabilize in February, according to S&P Global, whose composite PMI index stood at 50.2 in flash estimation, an eight-month high, compared with 46.8 for the previous month.

On the bond front, the session went badly, with the day's figures deemed more vigorous than expected: T-Bonds tightened by +10.5pts to 3.932%, and the '1-year' overtook the '6-month' with a +5pt jump to 5.05% (vs. 5.034% for the 6-month), i.e. a +112pt spread over the '230-year' (+7.5pts to 3.9320%, at par with the '10-year').

In Europe, our OATs jump +10pts to 3.020%, above 3.00%, Bunds tighten +7.5pts to 2.535%, and Italian BTPs shift +17pts to 4.47%.
The Dollar recovers 0.35% against the Euro to $1.067/E, with the Dollar Index unchanged at 103.9E.

In company news, payment solutions group Worldline (-3.5%, the CAC40's red lantern) reports a 23.4% increase in normalized EPS to 1.94 euros for 2022, as well as free cash flow of 520 million euros, i.e. 45.9% conversion of EBITDA (gross operating profit) of 1.13 billion.

Capgemini reported a 25% increase in normalized EPS to 11.52 euros for the past year, as well as organic free cash flow generation of 1.85 billion euros, in excess of 1.7 billion, in line with its target.

Finally, Engie (+4.7%) reports a 78.4% increase in net recurring income (NRI) group share (continuing operations) to 5.2 billion euros for 2022, as well as EBIT up 47.2% to nine billion and EBITDA up 29.8% to 13.7 billion.

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