(CercleFinance.com) - The well-attended demonstrations against pension reform in France are not impressing investors: the Paris stock market is back at equilibrium at 7.080Pts, in the wake of Wall Street's final session of January, with +0.2% for the Dow Jones and +0.9% for the Nasdaq (the Nasdaq-100 is back above 12,000).

The month of January thus ended with record gains of +9.5% for the Euro-Stoxx50, CAC and DAX), while the S&P500 (+0.4%) advanced by just +5.3%.
Reminder: all these scores were achieved as early as mid-January, and the indices have been consolidating sideways for over 2 weeks now, in contact with their peaks.

Many figures have been released in recent hours, and they have not helped the situation: French GDP for Q4 came in at +0.1% (after +0.2% in Q3), slightly higher than economists' forecasts of stable activity.

The prospect of a recession in the Eurozone therefore seems to be receding, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised upwards its economic forecasts for the world economy, now expecting growth of 2.9% this year, compared with +2.7% in its October outlook.
CVS GDP also rose by 0.1% in the Eurozone and remained stable in the EU in Q4 2022, compared with the previous quarter, according to the preliminary flash estimate published by Eurostat.

In year-on-year comparison, GDP grew by 1.9% in the eurozone and 1.8% in the EU over the last three months of the year, thus slowing after +2.3% in the eurozone and +2.5% in the EU in the previous quarter.
But all is not so "rosy": in Italy, GDP contracted by -0.4% in Q4.
In France, inflation rose to an estimated 6% in January, and the next US CPI could be disappointing.
Unemployment rose again in Germany in January, increasing by 0.3 percentage points month-on-month to 5.7% in January.
Consumer spending literally collapsed by -5.3% in December, casting a shadow over growth in 2023.
Destatis, the German statistics institute, announced on Tuesday that it had postponed publication of the inflation figures due to be released today.
Destatis explained the postponement by the occurrence of a technical problem linked to data processing.
In the U.S., the Chicago PMI disappointed with a score of 44.3 versus 45.3 expected.
Finally, the Conference Board's consumer confidence index deteriorated in January, to 107.1 for the current month, versus 109 in December, below the consensus figure of 109, which was unchanged.
Last month's figure was revised sharply upwards, having initially been announced at 108.3.
While the sub-index measuring consumers' assessment of their current situation improved from 147.4 to 150.9 month-on-month, the sub-index measuring their expectations fell to 77.8, compared with 83.4 last month, with employment expectations also down.

On the bond front, the deterioration seen the previous day came to a halt with a symbolic rebound in OATs and Bunds.
Their yields eased by -0.5pts to 2.7650% and 2.3000% respectively.
In the U.S., calm reigns 24 hours ahead of the FED's final statement, with a symbolic -1Pt change in T-Bonds to 3.5420%.

The Dollar regains ground and rises 0.2% to 1.0850 against the Euro, but loses a few fractions against other currencies (-0.05% to 102.2 for the 'Dollar-Index').
Note the sharp decline in oil prices: -1.5% to $84.4 a barrel in London, while the IMF forecasts global growth of +2.9% in 2023.

On the quarterly front, many heavyweights such as Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, McDonald's, UPS, Amgen, Caterpillar, AMD, GM, Electronic Arts, Spotify and Snap are due to unveil their accounts today.

In company news, Technip Energies reports that it has won a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract for the world's largest low-carbon hydrogen project for ExxonMobil in Baytown, Texas.

At the end of the first nine months of its 2022-23 financial year, Wavestone posted sales of 376.2 million euros, up 11%, of which +5% on a like-for-like basis (with a day effect of -1%).

Orange announces the appointment of Jean-François Fallacher as CEO of Orange France, effective April 3. He will replace Fabienne Dulac, who after eight years at the head of Orange France, will nevertheless remain on the Executive Committee.

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