The Paris stock market was stable this morning, at around 7490 points, driven by Edenred (+4%) and Thales (+3.1%), but penalized by Eurofins Scientific (-3%) and L'Oréal (-1.6%).

This morning, the markets took note of several statistics, such as France's trade balance. In November 2024, the French customs administration's CVS-CJO data showed a further improvement, with a deficit of 7.08 billion euros after 7.52 billion the previous month.

This month-on-month reduction was due to a 2.9% rise in French exports to 50.1 billion euros, while imports increased by only 1.7% to almost 57.2 billion.

Meanwhile, across the Rhine, volume orders in German manufacturing fell by 5.4% in November 2024 compared with the previous month, according to seasonally and calendar-adjusted data from Destatis, following a 1.5% contraction in October.

The markets are now awaiting the 'minutes', published at 8pm, of the Fed's December 17-18 meeting, at the end of which the central bank cut rates by a quarter, will be closely watched by investors.

The document should reveal more about the evolution of debates within the FOMC, the institution's monetary policy committee, as well as the future trajectory of its rate cuts.

The market is caught between contradictory discourses. While Fed Chairman Jerome Powell advocates caution and the entry into a "new phase" marked by fewer easing measures, other members have shown themselves to be a little more voluntarist.

For the time being, traders are not anticipating another rate cut before June, and a second by the end of the year, but the "minutes" could shed new light on the Fed's intentions, and even rekindle speculation about three rate cuts by 2025.

In the meantime, the market will have heard the ADP private sector employment survey in the early afternoon, followed by weekly US jobless claims figures, which should confirm the strength of the US labor market.

On the bond front, the yield on 10-year US Treasuries is up 6.5 basis points at 4.68%, having broken through the 4.70% barrier last night as European stock markets closed, in the wake of solid US economic indicators (ISM and JOLTS).

Bond yields in the euro zone followed suit, with the ten-year German Bund rising to 2.47%, while the French OAT for the same maturity came in at 3.30%.

In French company news, Trigano reported a 17.4% drop in sales to 769.8 million euros for its first quarter ended November 2024-25 (-18% on a like-for-like basis), compared with the same period a year earlier.

Solutions30 reports that it has strengthened its presence in the fast-growing Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure (EVCI) market in Poland, signing two contracts with key players in the country.

Lastly, Vallourec announces that it has achieved, a year ahead of schedule, its objective of zero net debt, having reduced its net debt by just over 240 million euros in the fourth quarter of 2024, its ninth consecutive quarter of deleveraging.

Copyright (c) 2025 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.