Mission accomplished and no suspense: the last session of the week, month and quarter ended with a firework display of absolute records: the CAC40 tested the long-term target of 8250 points (which should have been reached at best by the end of the year, according to forecasts made at the beginning of January), the CAC40 'GR' (including dividends) registered the symbolic mark of 25,000Pts, compared with 20,500 at the end of October 2023.000Pts, compared with 20,500 at the end of October 2023.
The Euro-Stoxx50n unsurprisingly broke through 5,100 (+12.8% year-on-year), with the DAX40 once again gravitating above 18,500.
On Wall Street, it's going to be a box-ticker of records if the opening scores are confirmed this evening, with the Dow Jones at 39,850 (+0.2%), and the S&P500 at 5,150... but the Nasdaq is struggling a little with -0.2%.

Ahead of the long Easter weekend - Western markets close up store this evening, only to reopen on Monday for Wall Street and Tuesday for European markets - investors discovered the latest estimate of US GDP growth for the 4th quarter: revised upwards by +0.2% to 3.4% annualized, according to a third estimate from the Commerce Department.
Growth in the world's leading economy is therefore slower than the 4.9% recorded in the third quarter (Jefferies was expecting the previous estimate to be confirmed).

This revision mainly reflects upward revisions to consumer spending and non-residential fixed investment, which were partly offset by a downward revision to investment in private inventories.

The Labor Department announced 210,000 new jobless claims in the US last week, down 2,000 on the previous week's revised figure (212,000 instead of 210,000).

The four-week moving average - more representative of the underlying trend - came in at 211,000, down 750 on the previous week's revised average.

Finally, the number of people receiving regular benefits rose by 24,000 to 1,819,000 in the week ending March 16, the most recent period available for this statistic.

The University of Michigan's consumer confidence index is due to be released mid-afternoon.

Tomorrow, when the markets will be closed, the US PCE index could also allay or reinforce concerns about the reawakening of inflation.

While the New York Stock Exchange will reopen on Monday, European stock markets will remain closed until Tuesday morning.

In this wait-and-see climate before the Easter weekend and on the eve of a major US statistic, T-Bonds rallied by +3pts to 4.228%, Bunds by +3pts and our OATs by +4.5pts to 2.832%; the euro retreated slightly against the greenback, to $1.08/E (-0.1%) and Brent crude oil (+1.2%) ended the quarter at its zenith at $87.4 in London.

In company news, Trigano posted sales for the first half of 2023-24 up 18.4% to almost 1.91 billion euros, with second-quarter sales (+17.8%) confirming the trend observed since the beginning of the year.

Following on from its announcement of the previous day, Renault Group reports that it has sold 99,132,100 Nissan shares to Nissan, representing around 2.5% of the Japanese company's capital, resulting in a positive cash flow of 358 million euros.

For 2023, Viel & Cie reports a 33.4% increase in net income (group share) to 98.1 million euros, and a 25.8% increase in operating income (including associates) to 172.1 million.

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