The Paris Bourse is likely to be cautious on Monday morning at the start of a week packed with earnings releases, as it awaits the Fed and ECB meetings.

At around 8:15 a.m., the 'future' contract on the CAC 40 index - February delivery - lost 31.5 points at 7074 points, signalling an opening in negative territory.

Investors are gearing up for a potentially decisive week, with an avalanche of quarterly results, interspersed with monetary policy decisions by the two major central banks.

The week promises to be one of the busiest of the US earnings season, with a total of 107 S&P 500 constituents, including six Dow Jones companies, due to publish their fourth-quarter accounts.

Several US technology giants are due to unveil their performances, including Apple, Amazon and Alphabet, who will all publish their figures after the close on Thursday evening.

So far, the earnings season has proved rather disappointing, with 69% of the 29% of S&P 500 companies that have published their results exceeding Wall Street expectations.

This score is well below the five-year average, which usually sees 77% of companies do better than expected, according to FactSet data.

In addition to this flurry of results, the week will be marked by the Federal Reserve's Monetary Policy Committee meeting, which kicks off tomorrow.

The gradual slowdown in inflation and the resilience of the US economy have recently reduced the chances of the Fed continuing on the path of restrictive monetary tightening.

Having already reduced the pace of its rate hikes in December, to 50 basis points from 75, the Fed is expected to raise rates by just 25 basis points on Wednesday.

Beyond the Fed meeting, the other highlight of the week will take place on Thursday, with the monetary policy decision of the European Central Bank (ECB).

While a 50bp rate hike is widely anticipated at the end of the ECB's Governing Council, investors will be closely scrutinizing the words of its President, Christine Lagarde.

Julien Russo, portfolio manager at Swiss Life Asset Managers France, comments: "All attention will be focused on the announcements to follow: what pace in March? what terminal level for the deposit rate and what timeframe?

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