The Paris Bourse is set to open in the green on Friday morning, in the hope that the employment figures to be released this afternoon in the US will confirm the scenario of a soft landing for the economy.

At around 8.15am, the 'future' contract on the CAC 40 index - February delivery - was up 32.5 points at 7,633.5, suggesting a positive start to the session.

Nevertheless, the Paris market is likely to remain relatively calm as it awaits the US employment report, to be unveiled by the Labor Department at 2.30pm.

Investors are awaiting confirmation of the trend towards a slowdown in the pace of job creation, which would validate the scenario of a soft landing evoked this week by the Federal Reserve.

However, this hypothesis must now be confirmed by labor market figures, which have generally surprised on the upside in recent months.

The consensus forecast is for job creation to slow to 180,000 in January, compared with 216,000 in December, and for the unemployment rate to rise from 3.7% to 3.8% month-on-month.

From an analyst's point of view, the US labor market should therefore continue to slow down, slowly but surely.

"One of the challenges for the Fed now is to make its policy less restrictive, in order to avoid a sharp rise in layoffs and hence in the unemployment rate", explains Bastien Drut, Head of Strategy and Economic Research at CPR AM.

Industrial orders figures and the Michigan consumer confidence index are also on today's economic agenda.

The results published by the technology giants last night after the close of Wall Street also reassured investors on the whole.

While Apple raised some concerns due to its slowing sales in China, better-than-expected accounts from Amazon and Meta Platforms were greeted by rises of 7% and 15% respectively in the after-hours.

The performances of US oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron will also enliven the mid-day session.

For the week as a whole, despite the Fed's delay, the CAC 40 has so far posted a limited decline of around 0.6%.

'It's worth noting, however, that macroeconomic data are solid, inflation is easing, monetary policymakers are ready to loosen their stance, and earnings releases of late have been very strong', emphasized Danske Bank's teams this morning.

Under these conditions, it's going to take more than bad news from the banks, geopolitical concerns and a real estate crisis in China to trip up the equity markets', the Danish bank believes.

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