(CercleFinance.com) - Bond markets are less serene in Europe, but confidence prevails on the other side of the Atlantic, a few hours before the Biden/Trump debate and 24 hours before the publication of the 'PCE'.

The 10-year yield on US government bonds, which had been little changed since the start of the week, eased by 3 pts to 4.285%.

This session was punctuated by a number of US figures: the latest estimate of Q1 GDP came in at +1.4% (compared with +1.3%.
Durable goods orders came as a pleasant surprise, up +0.1% against the consensus of -0.6%.
Real estate remains depressed, as promised home sales fell by 2.1% in May, although they were expected to rise by 0.6% after plunging by 7.7% the previous month
The Labor Department announced that 233,000 new jobless claims were registered in the US in the week to June 17, down by 6,000 on the previous week, which was revised upwards from 238,000 to 239,000.

The four-week moving average - more representative of the underlying trend - came in at 236,000, up 3,000 on the previous week.

Finally, the number of people receiving regular benefits rose by 18,000 to 1,839,000.

But the day is not over on Wall Street: it's time for politics, with the televised debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump scheduled for tonight on CNN, with a view to the presidential election on November 5.

With less than five months to go before the polls, the polls are predicting a particularly close election (46% of voting intentions for Trump, 45% for Biden), hence the importance of this confrontation.

In France, too, candidates will be throwing their last energies into the campaign to mark the first round of early parliamentary elections, to be held on Sunday.

Beyond the forthcoming composition of the National Assembly, investors remain primarily concerned by the budgetary issues of the opposing forces, which threaten to derail public accounts.
In the absence of stats from Europe, the markets appear very calm: the German Bund is stagnating at around 2.4500%, while our OATs are down +4 basis points (bps) to 3.263% (the spread has risen to +81 bps from 70 bps at the start of the week).

Across the Channel, Gilts are down +2.5Pts at 4.163%, 1 week ahead of the July 4 general election, which should see a large Labour victory in the House of Commons.

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