The Paris Bourse ended the session with a gain of 0.57%, at 7,957 points, driven by Edenred (+3%), Saint-Gobain and STMicro (+2.6% each).

Although the Paris index was propelled above 8,000 pts (+1.1%) early in the afternoon by the release of the US employment report (NFP), it gradually gave back some of its gains in the second half of the session.

Over the past week, the CAC40 has lost just over 1.6%, but has maintained a gain of almost 5.5% since the start of the year.

In the early afternoon, the markets reacted to the release of an NFP 30% below expectations: the US economy generated just 175,000 non-farm jobs in April, according to the Labor Department, well below market expectations, which had averaged around 250,000.000.

For its part, the unemployment rate rose by 0.1 points to 3.9%, where economists were hoping for stability at 3.8%, while the labor force participation rate held steady at 62.7%, and average hourly earnings rose at an annual rate of 3.9%.

In addition, non-farm payrolls for the previous two months were revised, from 270,000 to 236,000 for February and from 303,000 to 315,000 for March, giving a total revision balance of -22,000 for these two months.

Oddo BHF's teams point out that "job creation was again surprisingly strong in the first quarter, with an average of 276,000 new jobs created per month".
The latest NFP also rules out the risk of wage overheating, with hourly wages up by 3.6%.

Furthermore, growth in the US private sector slowed less than initially estimated in April, according to S&P Global's composite PMI index, which came in at 51.3 on balance, against a flash estimate of 50.9, and after 52.1 for the previous month (traders will note that this is a decline of -0.8 over 1 month, which points in the direction of a slowdown).

Finally, activity in the US service sector plunged back into contraction in April, for the first time since the end of 2022, according to the results of the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) monthly survey of purchasing managers.

After 15 consecutive months of growth, the ISM index measuring the evolution of the tertiary sector dipped to 49.4 last month, falling back below the 50-point threshold indicating a downturn in activity, compared with 51.4 in March.

Bond markets applauded the day's "weaker-than-expected" US figures, with -5pts on the 10-year at 4.52% (vs. 4.70% at the start of the week).

The emerging slowdown continues to weigh heavily on the oil sector, with Brent crude losing a further 0.3% to $83.4 a barrel, or -6.5% on a weekly basis.
Gold, which briefly fell back below $2,300 at around 3.35pm ($2,281), is now back up to $2,295, losing 1.5% on a weekly basis.

The dollar is clearly weaker, down -0.5%, with the euro rising symmetrically to $1.0770.

Supporting the Paris stock market, Societe Generale (-5.2%) reported this morning a 21.7% drop in net income, group share, to 680 million euros for the first quarter, well above the consensus target of 475 million.

Crédit Agricole SA reports underlying net income (group share) up 54.7% to 1.93 billion euros for the first quarter of 2024, and underlying gross operating income up sharply by 36.1% to 3.15 billion.

Legrand reports net income (group share) down 16.5% for the first three months of 2024, to 275.9 million euros, with adjusted operating margin before acquisitions down 1.6 points to 20.6% of sales.

Maurel & Prom announces that the Board of Directors will finally submit a dividend of 0.30 euro per share for 2023 to the AGM on May 28, instead of the initial proposal of a stable dividend of 0.23 euro announced alongside its annual results.


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