The Paris Bourse ended the week in the red: the CAC40, which lost nearly -1% at 7,045 at the end of the session, posted a stable score over the past 5 sessions... but a few minutes earlier, it was -0.5% (with a low at 7,006Pts) just after the publication of US consumer confidence.006Pts) just after the publication of US consumer confidence figures.

Wall Street reacted less badly, with US indices advancing by an average of +0.6%.

Confidence deteriorated for the fourth consecutive month, from 63.8 to 60.4 in November, according to the monthly survey by the University of Michigan.

Joanne Hsu, the report's author, cites concerns about the consequences of rising interest rates, as well as the impact of the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.

The component measuring households' assessment of their current situation fell to 65.7 from 70.6 last month, while the sub-index measuring their expectations dropped to 56.9 from 59.3 in September.

The market's recent upturn in optimism failed to withstand the negative impact of the cautious comments made by several Fed officials over the past 48 hours.

Investors were taken by surprise yesterday by Jerome Powell, who explicitly questioned the effectiveness of measures taken to bring inflation back towards its 2% target.

In the wake of these comments, the estimated probability of the Fed tightening its monetary policy again in December has risen to almost 15%, compared with less than 5% a week ago, according to the CME Group's FedWatch barometer.

Christine Lagarde also indicated at midday today that we will have to wait "several quarters" before considering an easing of the ECB's monetary policy.

Mr. Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the BdF, added that "barring an unexpected shock to inflation, ECB rate hikes are a thing of the past".

The market is also worried by the surge in yields following the semi-failure of a $24bn issue of 30-year Treasuries on Thursday evening, which led to a sharp rise in the yield on 10-year Treasuries to 4.64%, compared with 4.49% the previous day.

Treasury securities dealers (TSSs) were forced to compensate for weak demand for 30-year Treasuries from foreign institutional investors.

Tension eased a little this afternoon on T-Bonds, which erased -4pts to 4.5920.

On the other hand, our OATs and Bunds tightened by a further +5pts to 3.29% and 2.7050%, while BTPs also posted +5pts to 4.566%.

In the wake of several already very quiet sessions in terms of statistics, there were few indicators on the agenda for this final session of the week.

In Europe, the morning was dominated by the publication of the first estimate of UK GDP for the third quarter.

UK industrial production stagnated in September compared with the previous month, following a 0.5% decline in August (revised from the 0.7% drop initially announced), according to the Office for National Statistics.

After the publication frenzy of the last few sessions, the calendar was lighter today for corporate results: Allianz reported a -29.5% fall in profits, and Richemont saw its earnings recover to E1.5 billion.

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