The Paris Stock Exchange is at a standstill, or almost, in the middle of the afternoon, still groggy after the biggest fall on Wall Street since June Monday. A paralysis which also affects the American places this day, the major indices being content to evolve around their closing levels of the day before, while the event of this end of August is fast approaching for the Stock Exchange. , the Jackson Hole symposium and Friday’s speech by US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
A lot of apprehension, indeed, at the approach of this major meeting, most market strategists agreeing to think that the boss of the Fed, Jerome Powell, will be much more incisive than during the last July monetary policy decision. The economic situation allows it. While inflation continues to peak at 8.5% over one year, the job market remains solid, as did the last season of corporate results overall. The yield on 10-year bonds rose above the 3% threshold yesterday (2.99% this afternoon) for the first time in a month. In Paris, growth stocks are suffering, like Teleperformance (-1,4%) et Dassault Systems (-1,9%).
Around 4:15 p.m., the Cac 40 lost 0.09%, to 6,359.39 points, in a trading volume of 1.17 billion euros. The decline would be greater without the support of one of the heavyweights of the rating, TotalEnergies (+2.3%), driven by the rise in oil prices, to nearly 98 dollars per barrel of Brent. OPEC has said it is ready to cut production to correct the recent drop in crude prices linked to macroeconomic fears, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said. At the SRD, oil services CGG et Vallourec take more than 5%, Technip Energies 4%.
The recession has already started
This morning, the PMI manufacturing and services figures in the euro zone in preliminary data for August had brought a slight comfort, although still very fragile. According to these flash data, the composite index in the euro zone remains in a contraction phase, at 49.2 points, against 49.9 points in July, but a little above the 49 points which had been targeted by the consensus, thanks almost stable in industry, while the non-manufacturing component deteriorated a little more than expected. It was from Germany that the surprise came in particular, with an industrial sub-index very close to the threshold of 50, therefore close to growth, rebounding over one month.
« The latest flash PMI data points to a decline in overall eurozone activity for a second consecutive month in August, explains S&P Global. Prices paid and prices charged by businesses in the euro area rose again at robust rates in August. However, the survey shows further signs that price increases are leveling off, with cost and tariff inflation rates having eased compared to July. ” Most ” soaring gasoline prices and strong domestic price pressures will keep inflation high, immediately tempers Jack Allen-Reynolds, of Capital Economics, for whom these PMI figures mean that the recession has already started in Europe.
For Ed Moya, market analyst at Oanda, “ the scenarios built around global growth are collapsing, that’s what’s fundamentally weighing on risk appetite right now, the US can’t continue to be attractive while the rest of the world fails. »