The Paris stock market closed slightly down 0.16% on Wednesday, with investors eagerly awaiting the conclusions of the US Federal Reserve meeting for new developments during the session.
The CAC 40 index fell by 12.33 points to 7,531.22 points, after having risen for most of the day. It reached 7,579.25 points during the session, almost reaching its all-time high set on Tuesday. However, the closing record of April 21, 2023, at 7,577 points, still stands.
Adrien Roure, a multi-asset manager at Indosuez, believes that the day’s session is a continuation of Tuesday’s. As with the previous day, the most important indicator focused on the evolution of prices in the United States.
Wednesday’s most anticipated event for the markets falls after the Paris market closes, with the conclusions from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting of the year. Market participants are certain that they will maintain their interest rates in the range of 5.25%-5.50%, but the “tone of Jerome Powell’s speech” and the “projections” for future interest rates will be closely scrutinized, according to Mr. Roure.
In France, the interest rate on government 10-year bonds, the reference maturity, fell to 2.71%, compared to 2.77% on Tuesday at the close and a peak of 3.60% at the end of October, nearing the lowest levels since April.
In addition to the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, investors are also preparing for the meetings of the European Central Bank and the Bank of England on Thursday.
Several companies linked to Argentina suffered losses on the stock market after the announcement of the shock devaluation of the peso by the new president. In France, the share price of the retail group Carrefour, which generates about 3.75% of its turnover in Argentina, fell by 5.37% to 16.12 euros. Orange also lost 3.21% at 10.80 euros, following the 3.29% drop of the Spanish Telefonica.
The engineering group SII surged by over 30% to 69.50 euros on Wednesday following the announcement of a public takeover bid led by a group of shareholders including the Huvé family, who already hold the majority of the capital. The bid could result in a mandatory delisting procedure. The offer is made at a price of 70 euros per share and the company was valued at just over a billion euros before this offer.
The initiators of the public takeover bid want to be “accompanied by a professional financial partner” and reduce “regulatory and administrative constraints and costs related to listing.”
