(CercleFinance.com) – The Paris Stock Exchange should open without much change on Monday at the start of a week which promises to be calm with few major indicators on the agenda.
The 'futures' contract on the CAC 40 index – which has now switched to the December expiry – shows a modest gain of 13 points to 7298.50 around 8.15, announcing a stable, even slightly positive start to the session.
Over the past week, the Parisian market fell by around 1%, a decline which brings its decline recorded since the start of the year to around 1%.
This heaviness affected all European markets, since the Euro STOXX 50 lost 1.2%, for an annual gain now reduced to around 6%.
Analysts point out that the underperformance of the Old Continent's stock markets has now reached historic levels compared to Wall Street, which is making record after record.
'The themes which continue to concern the markets are now well known: on the one hand the effect of the election of Trump, the weakness of demand from China and the comments of disparate companies concerning the third quarter', recall the Edmond de Rothschild teams.
'On this last point, more than half of the STOXX 600 companies have published their results, and only a few sectors surprised positively on average,' underlines the private bank.
Barclays strategists say European companies reported an average of 3% growth in earnings per share (EPS) in the third quarter, compared to a 7% increase among their American counterparts.
The 'Trump Trade' – which carried Wall Street in the wake of the November 5 presidential election – nevertheless seems to have run out of steam last week.
After jumping from 5% to 6% during the sessions following the election, the major New York indices dropped between 1% and 3% last week, worried about the repercussions of the policies of the next American president.
Investors fear that the 'pro-business' approach advocated by the real estate magnate will lead to a resurgence of inflation which could lead the Fed to slow down its rate cuts.
The economic agenda looks set to be light this week, with the main event set for Friday with the publication of the European 'flash' PMI indices.
This data will make it possible to gauge the reaction of European companies to the recent victory of Donald Trump and their feeling regarding the possible implementation of customs duties likely to penalize their activity.
In this context, all eyes should especially be on the results of Nvidia on Wednesday evening, now the largest listed company in the world ahead of Apple.
The performance of the manufacturer of chips dedicated to AI could help revive a technological sector that has been losing momentum recently (-1.6% for the S&P sector index over the past month).
Analysts covering the stock expect a publication comparable to its latest announcements, namely better than expected accounts accompanied by an increase in targets, especially as the semiconductor designer now begins to take advantage of the recent launch of its new architecture, called 'Blackwell'.
