After having peaked at 7,190 points (+1%), the Paris Bourse gave up its gains at the end of the day and ended the session down 0.18% at 7,119 points, penalized in particular by the declines of Société Générale (-5%) and Saint Gobain (-4%).

Wall Street was also in the red, with -1% on the S&P500 and -1.7% on the Nasdaq.

In the absence of any major statistics, operators continue to dissect Jerome Powell's comments. Yesterday, the Fed Chairman said he would not rule out accelerating the pace of Fed rate hikes if strong economic indicators warranted it (notably the latest employment report, which showed that the labor market remained under pressure, as did wages and inflation).

But Wall Street was only interested in the hint that prices had begun to fall and were continuing to do so at a steady pace: the FED will therefore be able to lower rates - as the markets hope with all their soul - if this trend continues.

The markets were expecting a clearly restrictive turn after the much better-than-expected employment figures, but these concerns have not materialized", emphasize Danske Bank's teams.

The euro is virtually stable against the dollar, trading at $1.0720 (-0.1%).

Meanwhile, bond markets are continuing their downward trend, with renewed tension on the 10-year bond: our OATs are up 6.2pts at 2.823%, Bunds are up 6pts at 2.3700%, and the same is true of Italian BTPs.

Scores remain unchanged in the US, with T-Bonds stabilizing at 3.68% (+1 basis point) over the past 72 hours.

In corporate news, TotalEnergies (-1.5%) reported higher fourth-quarter results on Wednesday, with record net income of $36.2 billion - excluding losses related to Russia (-$4.1 billion) - and a 2-fold increase in profit to $20.5 billion, still buoyed by high oil prices, even though production declined slightly.

Over the last three months of the year, the French group posted adjusted net income of $7.6 billion (+11%), slightly above the consensus target of $7.5 billion.

TotalEnergies reports that its Board of Directors has decided to reduce its share capital by cancelling 128.869,261 treasury shares representing 4.92% of the share capital, which were bought back between February 11 and December 15, 2022.

Société Générale (-4.9%) reports record underlying net income for 2022, up 6.7% to 5.62 billion euros (2 billion euros as reported, after taking into account the impact of the disposal of Rosbank and its Russian insurance subsidiaries).

Amundi reports adjusted net income for 2022 of 1.18 billion euros, down 10.5%, which 'is mainly explained by the exceptional level of performance fees in 2021 of 427 million euros, compared with 171 million, a more normal level, in 2022'.

BNP Paribas gained 2.4% and was the best performer on the CAC after announcing its results. Against this backdrop, Credit Suisse maintains its Outperform rating on the stock, with its target price raised from €75 to €78.

Finally, Alstom and RegioJet have signed an agreement for the supply of a further 13 Traxx MS3 locomotives. These locomotives will operate in the Central Europe region, with deliveries scheduled to start in 2024.


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