The Paris Stock Exchange ended almost in balance (+0.06%) on Monday, with investors hesitating at the start of a week which should see the European Central Bank (ECB) lower its rates for the first time since the start of its cycle of monetary tightening.
The flagship CAC 40 index advanced 5.15 points, to 7,998.02 points. On Friday, the index finished slightly up 0.18% but showed a clear decline of 1.26% over the week.
The Paris Stock Exchange initially climbed in the first part of the session, the markets benefiting from a “rebound” at the start of the month and the week, after a “rather agitated” last week of May, Nicolas told AFP. Forest, investment director at Candriam.
But the CAC 40 then retracted to evolve more around balance. “The market is a little hesitant” before Thursday’s ECB meeting, “the big meeting of the week,” believes Mr. Forest.
Observers expect the ECB to lower its key rates by 0.25 percentage points, given the slowdown in inflation over the past year, still above the 2% target, and the weak economic momentum in the euro zone.
However, this first drop is so established for the markets that investors will be more attentive to clues on the next steps.
They wonder if it will mark the opening of a “bearish cycle” or if it will be followed by a long pause, explains Nicolas Forest, hoping that “the question-and-answer session” after the meeting “will bring clarity” .
Furthermore, the rating agency S&P Global Ratings lowered France’s sovereign rating on Friday for the first time since 2013, from “AA” to “AA-“, sanctioning the “deterioration of the budgetary position” of the country.
This decision had almost no consequences on the bond market. “Today, there is no concern on the markets, it is rather the opposite because this risk (…) was largely anticipated,” said Mr. Forest to AFP.
The yield on French government bonds with a 10-year maturity stood at 3.05% on Monday, down slightly compared to Friday’s closing value.
But the rates of other euro zone countries also fell as the ECB meeting approached, so that the gap between the French rate and its German equivalent, considered the safest sovereign debt in the euro zone , remained stable on Monday.
Atos dives
Heavily indebted Atos announced on Monday that it had received two “revised” financial restructuring offers, one from Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky and the other from a consortium led by Onepoint, its main shareholder, with The aim of ensuring “maximum support” for one of these proposals by Wednesday.
Atos plunged 18.31%, to 1.37 euros, signing by far the worst performance of the broader SBF120 index.
Small rebound for OVH
The action of the French IT service provider OVH recovered slightly on Monday (+4.10% to 4.72 euros) after dropping 25% last week.
Founder Octave Klaba and his brother Miroslaw Klaba announced Friday evening that they had “put an end to their plan to sell shares” in the company on May 29 to “finance the development” of the new Synfonium platform.
The two brothers sold between April 29 and May 28 some 726,500 OVH shares for “around 4.7 million euros”, he said on X (formerly Twitter), or around 6.5 euros per share on average, while a share was worth around 11 euros at the beginning of April.
Euronext CAC40
