The CAC40 (+1.2%) breaks through 7,100 (7,118) and looks set to stay there, a bold move as the bullish rally takes on historic proportions on Wall Street: 9th session up (+0.1%) for the S&P500 (which is aiming to close the 4.402Pts) and a 10th for the Nasdaq (+0.3% to 13,690) for a cumulative gain of +8.5%.
A series of 10's only happens once or twice a decade... it's a kind of steamroller that crushes sellers (and turns them into unwilling buyers).

Investors, who have seen oil plunge -14% since October 26, are betting that this phenomenon precedes an imminent easing of tensions in the Middle East.

The other 'wild card' that may explain today's rise in Europe is that managers are pinning their hopes on more 'dovish' statements from Christine Lagarde, along the lines of those made by Jerome Powell 10 days ago (answer at 5.30 pm, when markets will be closed).

Few 'macro' figures this Thursday: weekly jobless claims in the US came in at 217,000, down by 3,000 on the previous week's revised level, according to the Labor Department.

The four-week moving average - more representative of the underlying trend - came in at 212,250 last week, an increase of 1,500 on the previous week's revised average.

Finally, the number of people receiving regular benefits rose by 22,000 to 1,834,000 in the previous week, the most recent period available for this statistic..

After a speech that seemed like a non-event yesterday, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will speak again today at an IMF conference in Washington.
The bond markets do not seem to be anticipating any "revelations" on this occasion, and consolidation is the order of the day.
On the bond front, 10-year T-Bonds rallied +6.3pts to 4.571%, the German bund regained 3.75pts to 2.65% and the OAT +3pts to 3.231%.
On the oil market, which contributed so much to the recent easing of rates, Brent crude prices are back up 1%, at around $80.6 a barrel.

While earnings season is now drawing to a close in the US, corporate accounts should continue to dictate the trend in Europe, where the likes of ArcelorMittal, AstraZeneca, Deutsche Telekom, Merck KGaA and Telecom Italia have been published this morning or will be later today.

In French company news, Veolia reported strong organic growth (on a like-for-like basis) in profits for the first nine months of the year, with current EBIT up 14.2% to 2.52 billion euros, and EBITDA up 7.7% to 4.79 billion.

For the third quarter of 2023, ArcelorMittal reports a 6.4% year-on-year decline in net income, Group share, to $929 million, and an EBITDA drop of almost 30% to $1.86 billion, although these levels are slightly ahead of consensus.

For the first nine months of 2023, Valneva reported a net loss down 30% to 69.3 million euros, despite a negative adjusted EBITDA rising from 38 to 46 million year-on-year, on total sales down 55.3% to 111.8 million.


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