The Paris Bourse (+05% to 7,338) broke an all-time record on the eve of the "3 Witches" session, which will be historic in any case, as it should mark a 20th week of gains, a gain of +14% since January 1 and +30.5% since last September 29: the CAC40 'Px1' stood at 7,387Pts at 11:33 (+1.2%).387Pts at 11:33 a.m. (+1.2%), 2.5Pts higher than on January 5, 2022 at 5:28 p.m., the CAC40 'GR' passed the 21.700 (i.e. 250pts higher than the previous day, and 600pts higher than on 5/1/2022).

The CAC40 is being driven by Orange (+7%) and Airbus (+4.5%), which published their results this morning (see below).
The Euro-Stoxx50 also broke a record, but only for the year, at 4.316, while the DAX climbed towards 15,634 (also its 2023 zenith)... but these 2 indices fell back to zero, or even sharply down (-0.6%) as Wall Street began the session in bright red, with the Dow Jones at -1%, the S&P500 at -130% and the Nasdaq at -1.4%.

The apparent euphoria was slightly dampened by a flurry of macroeconomic indicators in the US, 3 out of 4 of which were more robust than expected: "good news" became "bad news" in view of the prospect of a further rate cut... which would therefore be postponed for several months.
Producer prices rose by +0.7% in January in the US (vs. +0.4% expected), mainly in the wake of the rebound in energy costs.

The Labor Department announced on Thursday that PPI rose by +6% over 12 months to the end of January, in the wake of energy prices, which climbed by 5.4% in January after falling by 10.3% in December.

Excluding core data, i.e. food, energy and business services, producer prices rose by 0.6% in January, their strongest rate of increase since March 2022.
Over 12 months, the rise was 4.5% instead of the 4.3% anticipated.
Conclusion: the price decline (-0.2% in December) has come to a halt, and this could prompt a review of the scenario of a continued fall in 2023.

US jobless claims fell by -1000 in the week to February 6, to 194,000 from 195,000 the previous week (revised from 196,000), according to the Labor Department, whereas a rise towards 200.000 had been expected.

A small blip in the picture of a US economy on the verge of overheating: the Commerce Department reported a 4.5% fall in US housing starts last month, to an annualized rate of 1,309,000, below economists' expectations.

U.S. building permits - which are supposed to predict future housing starts - remained stable (+0.1%) at an annualized rate of 1,339,000 in January, thus slightly missing the market consensus: it seems illusory to expect a real turnaround in the trend, as U.S. long-term yields are climbing again (+4pts to 3.894% on the 30-year).

These statistics will not reassure Wall Street about the Federal Reserve's interest-rate management, resulting in a strong dollar (1.0665/E, i.e. +0.15%) and a recovery in bond yields.
The inversion of the US yield curve remains impressive, with the '6-month' and '1-year' yields testing 5.0300% and 5.0200% respectively this afternoon.
The yield on 10-year US Treasuries has risen +3.8pts to 3.8450%, leading to a deterioration in Europe, with OATs at 2.974% (vs. 2.944% on Wednesday) and Bunds at 2.5060% (vs. 2.474%).... and Italian BTPs add +6Pts to 3.3900%.

In company news, Orange announces net income for 2022 of 2.62 billion euros, compared with 778 million in 2021, and organic cash flow from telecom activities up 27.4% to 3.06 billion, in line with its target of at least 2.9 billion.

Pernod Ricard has reported a 29% increase in net income, group share, to 1.79 billion euros for its first half 2022-23, mainly reflecting a rise in operating income recurring (+12% in terms of organic growth) to 2.42 billion.

Renault Group claims a significant improvement in profitability for 2022, with net income from continuing operations up by 1.1 billion euros to 1.6 billion euros, and an automotive operating margin of 3.3%.

Finally, Airbus reported net income up 6% to 1.68 billion euros for the last three months of the year, on sales up 21% to 20.64 billion euros.

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