This evening, the Paris stock market gained 0.56% to 7,413 points, driven by Alstom (+4.5%), STMicro and Capgemini (+2.5%) in limited volumes, with barely 2.5 billion euros traded since the opening.

The week ahead promises to be a busy one, culminating in the European Central Bank's (ECB) monetary policy meeting on Thursday, ahead of the Fed's meeting next week.

In view of the statements made by its President, Christine Lagarde, last Wednesday in Davos, the Frankfurt-based institute is likely to resist market calls for a rate cut as early as March.

Investors are likely to be disappointed', warns Christopher Dembik, Investment Strategy Advisor at Pictet AM.

'In the very short term, it is not in the ECB's interest to reveal too much about the timing of the first rate cut and the pace of the easing process', he adds.

Given the uncertainties surrounding the evolution of monetary policy in both Europe and the USA, traders will be focusing on corporate results, particularly those of heavyweights such as Netflix, Tesla, IBM and Intel.

These announcements will be closely watched as Wall Street set new records on Friday evening, still buoyed by the good form of semiconductor and AI-related stocks.

A number of European stock market giants are also due to publish their accounts over the coming days, including ASML, LVMH, Nokia, SAP and STMicroelectronics.

The week will also be punctuated by the PMI activity indices for Europe, due on Wednesday, followed by the first estimate of fourth-quarter US growth, due on Thursday.

In the bond segment, the upward trend in US Treasury yields is easing slightly after +25Pts last week on all maturities from 2 to 30 years.
The yield on the US 10-year note eased -5.3pts to 4.09%, while its German equivalent, the Bund with the same maturity, also eased -5pts to 2.25%.
Brent crude recovered by +1.5% to $79.8 a barrel in London, while the euro lost 0.1% against the greenback, to around $1.0885/E.
Also of note is the relapse of Bitcoin (-2.8%), which broke through the $42,000-$40,500 support level.

In French company news, La Française des Jeux gained more than 6% after reporting a current EBITDA of 675 million euros for 2023, i.e. a margin of 25.1% on sales of 2.62 billion euros, up 6.5% (+2.8% on a like-for-like basis).

Crédit Agricole announces the acquisition of a 7% minority stake in Worldline, continuing the strategic partnership between the two groups, for which the signing of a binding agreement was announced in July 2023.

Finally, S.T. Dupont today announces the launch of a capital increase with preferential subscription rights to raise €25 million, to be paid up either in cash or by debt set-off.

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