The Paris Bourse ended the session with a gain of 0.21%, at 7549 points, shrugging off the decline on Wall Street, where the S&P500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq are currently down 0.2%.

This morning, traders were able to take note of the final Eurostat consumer price index data for the eurozone. Inflation came out at 6.9% in March 2023, compared with 8.5% in February. In the EU, it was 8.3%, compared with 9.9% in February.

The lowest annual rates were recorded in Luxembourg (2.9%), Spain (3.1%) and the Netherlands (4.5%), and the highest in Hungary (25.6%), Latvia (17.2%) and the Czech Republic (16.5%).

In the eurozone, the biggest contributions to annual inflation came from food, alcohol and tobacco (+3.12 percentage points, pp), followed by services (+2.10 pp), industrial goods excluding energy (+1.71 pp) and energy (-0.05 pp).

While inflation in the region probably peaked last autumn, the disinflation process looks set to be slow, and high food prices could have a negative impact on consumption.

Still on the statistics front, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that crude oil inventories reached 466 million barrels in the week to April 10 in the United States, down 4.6 million barrels on the previous week.

Inventories of distillates - including heating oil - fell by 0.4 million barrels, while gasoline stocks rose by 1.3 million barrels, again compared with the previous week.

The EIA reports that refineries operated at 91% of capacity during the same week, with average production of 9.5 million barrels/day.

Global markets still don't seem to be alarmed by the prospect of recession: the VIX on Wall Street has fallen back to below 17, while a slowdown in US activity is expected to materialize before the end of the year, an unattractive prospect for equities.

With this in mind, the season of quarterly corporate results which began last week promises to be tough for investors who would like to be reassured by the forecasts of listed companies.

On the bond front, our OATs added +4pts to 3.006% (+50pts in 3 weeks), Bunds +3.5pts to 2.5050% and US T-Bonds +5pts to 3.625%.

In French corporate news, Bolloré confirms that its Board of Directors, meeting on Tuesday, has approved the launch of a simplified tender offer for its own shares, as announced on March 14.

Worldline and Crédit Agricole announce the signature of an exclusive, non-binding negotiation agreement with a view to a strategic partnership that would 'create a major player in services for retailers in France'.

Alstom announces that it has been chosen by the Eurométropole de Strasbourg and the CTS to supply the new tramway trains for the Strasbourg network, under an eight-year framework agreement worth a maximum of 250 million euros.

Veolia would like to sell Sade, its French subsidiary specializing in the design, construction, rehabilitation and maintenance of water networks and facilities, according to Bloomberg.

Finally, the European Commission has authorized, under the EU Merger Regulation, the acquisition of sole control of Total Eren Holding by TotalEnergies SE.


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