The (relative) heaviness of Wall Street - with the Nasdaq at -0.5% - does not penalize the European indices, which continue to pile up records and are heading for 'winning doubles' at the close by 5:35 pm.
This is the best-case scenario with 48 hours to go before the "4 Witches" session, which will see the 1st quarter end with historic and even stratospheric gains for many stocks.
This is truly a "momentum" and "full risk on" market, hence the surge in Bitcoin ($73.450) and many cryptos.
The CAC40 (+0.75%) has climbed to around 8,157pts (in the wake of Schneider and BNP at +2.5%), the Euro-Stoxx50 (+0.5% with Inditex at +8%) has broken through the 5,000 mark.000, and the DAX40 climbed to within touching distance of the 18,000 mark.
The Parisian flagship index almost doubled its tally after gaining more than 0.8% the previous day, despite a hesitant opening on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones at 0.4%, the S&P 500 at -0.15% and the Nasdaq at -0.5%.

The disappointing inflation report failed to halt the continued strength of equity markets, fuelled by investor enthusiasm for technology stocks, with generative AI taking center stage.

'Investments in this area, particularly in companies such as Meta and Salesforce, have achieved excellent returns in 2023', points out Erling Haugan Kise, fund manager at DNB Asset Management.
With few statistics on the agenda today, there's little movement on bonds, with the US T-Bond down +2.5pts to 4.182%, and the '2y' down just +1pt to 4.61E.
In Europe, Bunds are down +2pts, and our OATs +1pt to 2.346% and 2.784% respectively.
Note the new all-time high - one more - for Bitcoin, at $72,300 (around 5 p.m.), while the dollar is weakening slightly against the euro (+0.15% to 1.0945).
The late afternoon was a busy one for the energy sector, with oil up +1.5% to $84 in London ($83.9) and $80 on the NYMEX.

On the value front, Vallourec (+7%) announced that ArcelorMittal had reached an agreement to buy Apollo's 28.4% voting rights and 27.5% shareholding in its capital, for a total of 955 million euros.

BNP Paribas estimates that '2024 will be above the distributable net income published in 2023', and reports an acceleration and expansion of its operating efficiency measures by around 400 million recurring euros.

Solvay reports underlying net income from continuing operations of 588 million euros for 2023, compared with 740 million previously, but free cash flow (FCF) up 17.3% to 561 million, representing a record FCF conversion rate of 45.4%.

Dassault Systèmes and Rexel announce that their Boards of Directors will propose dividends of €0.23 and €1.20 per share respectively for 2023, in cash, to their AGMs.


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