Fixed-income markets remain - barring a few exceptions - well oriented - the easing continues in Europe - in a context marked by the absence of a large proportion of investors.

Yields are edging up slightly in the United States, but the die was already cast before the publication of a few figures released this afternoon in the US, which had no impact on T-Bonds, which fell by +4 basis points to 3.825%.
The Labor Department announced 218,000 new jobless claims in the US at the end of the week of December 18, up by 12,000 on the revised figure.000 new jobless claims in the USA for the week ending December 18, up 12,000 on the previous week's revised figure (206,000 vs. 205,000 initially announced).

The four-week moving average - more representative of the underlying trend - came out at 212,000 last week, virtually stable (-250) on the previous week's revised average.

Finally, the number of people receiving regular benefits rose by 14,000 to 1,875.000 in the previous week, the most recent period available for this statistic.

The US goods trade deficit widened to -$90.3 billion last month, from -$89.6 billion in October, as exports (-3.6%) fell more than imports (-2.1%) month-on-month.

The Commerce Department, which published these preliminary estimates, also reported that inventories had fallen by 0.2% in wholesale trade and by 0.1% in retail trade.
Lastly, promised new home sales were unchanged in November, but down -5.2% over 12 months.

Few figures from Europe (overall unemployment rose by 0.4% in France in November) and no brake on ambient optimism: the German Bund yield fell by -2.8Pts to 1.92% and that of our OATs remained stable (-0.5Pts to 2.467%), while Spanish Bonos erased -1.3Pt to 2.89%.

Italian BTPs, on the other hand, rose by +3.5pts to 3.593%, and UK Gilts to 3.513%.

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