The Paris Bourse is set to open higher on Monday morning, ahead of this week's publication of a number of indicators that will give investors a better idea of where they stand in the markets.

At around 8.15am, the future contract on the CAC 40 index - February delivery - was up 28.5 points at 7,681 points, suggesting a continuation of last week's positive trend.

Buoyed by well-received results from luxury giants Hermès and Kering, the Parisian index gained 0.7% last week to close in on its all-time highs set the previous week.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 managed to rack up its 14th week of gains out of 15, ending Friday's session comfortably above the psychological 5000-point threshold.

While it's true that the 5,000-point mark is a rather artificial, attention-grabbing psychological barrier, it does testify to the market's strength and resilience in the face of an interest-rate adjustment of historic proportions", points out Angelo Kourkafas, strategist at Edward Jones.

Since January 1, the S&P 500 is already up 5.4%, having gained over 22% in the last year.

Investors are counting on the series of economic indicators expected in the coming days to maintain the upward momentum in place since the start of the year.

The markets are hoping for the kind of statistics that investors like: reassuring about the state of the economy, but not strong enough to justify postponing rate cuts.

The strength of the US economy has surprised in recent weeks, particularly on the employment front, suggesting that growth remains solid across the Atlantic despite fears of a coming recession.

The resilience of activity has so far overshadowed tensions in the bond compartment, with the yield on ten-year Treasuris peaking at almost 4.19%, the highest since the start of the year.

In Europe, activity seems to have stalled since the summer, which seems to justify the valuation discount that European equities are showing compared with their US counterparts.

Tomorrow, the market will take note of the US consumer price index, which is expected to have slowed in January, confirming the prospect of further monetary easing.

Other important indicators will follow, such as import prices and retail sales on Thursday, before Michigan consumer confidence on Friday.

On the other hand, better-than-expected indicators could dampen enthusiasm for equities, lest they prompt the Federal Reserve to postpone future rate cuts.

Several Fed officials have recently pushed back the horizon for rate easing, with perhaps no more than two to three rate cuts envisaged for 2024, in view of singularly robust growth.

The other hoped-for catalyst could come from companies, with the fourth-quarter earnings season set to continue in the days ahead.

While there will be fewer announcements in the US, several leading groups such as Coca-Cola, Kraft Heinz, Cisco and Applied Materials are due to unveil their accounts this week.

On the contrary, the pace will pick up in Europe, and particularly in France, where publications from EssilorLuxottica, Capgemini, Airbus, Schneider Electric, Safran, Stellantis, Pernod Ricard, Orange and Renault are expected over the next few days.

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