The Paris Bourse is set to open lower on Friday morning, still suffering from profit-taking after its recent record highs, which should prevent it from posting a second consecutive week of gains.

At around 8:15 a.m., futures on the CAC 40 index - May delivery - were down 17 points at 8173, heralding a continuation of the consolidation begun yesterday.

Investors seem keen to wind down a week marked by relief over US inflation, knowing that the day's agenda promises to be light.

Buoyed by reassuring inflation figures in the United States pointing to a forthcoming rate cut by the Fed, the Paris market hit a new all-time closing high of nearly 8234 points on Wednesday.

The CAC 40 index has thus gained 3.5% over the past two weeks.

The speed and scale of this movement nevertheless prompted traders to take some profits, a trend reversal accentuated by the blocking effect of the major resistance at 8250 points.

Since the beginning of the year, this threshold has systematically represented an important management point, synonymous with at least partial profit-taking, which has prevented the psychological 8500-point threshold from being rallied.

For the week as a whole, the CAC is currently down by a symbolic 0.4%.

In another sign of the market's cautious stance, Wall Street fell back last night (-0.1%) after breaking through the 40,000-point barrier for the first time in its history thanks to Walmart's good results.

After May's sharp rise, investors are all the more tempted to play it safe, as next week will see Nvidia's quarterly results.

Analysts are expecting better-than-expected performances from the processor manufacturer and an increase in its annual targets, as is the Californian group's wont.

Good news would undeniably confirm the positive direction of technology stocks, particularly those focused on artificial intelligence.

One of the most striking effects of this week's worse-than-expected inflation figures was the fall in yields on US Treasuries, in anticipation of increasingly likely monetary easing in the US.

The 10-year yield on Treasuries climbed back a little above 4.37% after falling yesterday to 4.32%, the lowest in over a month.

Although inflation data in the Eurozone remains much less vigorous than in the US, European yields reacted "out of sympathy" by also falling back, before stabilizing.

The yield on the German 10-year government bond, the benchmark for the Eurozone as a whole, thus stands at 2.46%.

On the indicators front, investors will be watching this afternoon for the publication of the Conference Board's index of leading indicators, expected to fall by 0.3% in April.

They will also be keeping a close eye on the final eurozone inflation figures for April, expected at 11:00 a.m., which will reveal whether price trends in the services sector point to an ECB rate cut in June, the scenario currently favored by the markets.

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