Posted on December 29, 2023 at 3:56 pmUpdated December 29, 2023 at 3:58 p.m
The Cac 40 gained 0.4% this Friday around 3:45 p.m. It’s not huge, and yet it’s his strongest progression in two weeks. It seems that investors were waiting for a wake-up call in the last session of the year. With the end of the holidays, the variations are apathetic. The proof is that business volumes only reach millions of euros.
The Paris Stock Exchange’s flagship index has come a long way since its first listing in 2023, during which the Cac 40 gained 1.87%. For now, it is almost 17% higher in 2023, which would be its third best score since 2014. Eight months of the year were positive and four were negative. Europe’s Stoxx 600 gained 0.3%, taking its annual performance to 13% for the year, and more broadly the MSCI All Country World rose more than 20%.
A faster-than-expected slowdown in inflation in major economies led investors to bet on central bank interest rate cuts in 2024 even before the Federal Reserve officially talked about it earlier this month. The European Central Bank has not yet embarked on this. ” Once the Fed changed its mind, investors found themselves in a positive mood said Tim Murray, multi-asset strategist at T Rowe Price. ” It was an important and unexpected event “. The market is now counting on six rate cuts by the Fed and the ECB by the end of next year.
A record high this year still eludes the S&P 500
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 is moving at a fast pace to new highs. The flagship index is barely able to break three points, while it would need at least 35 to reach the all-time high recorded in January 2022. It shows a 24.6% gain in 2023 and a 13.8% gain for the Dow Jones. Boxing in another category, the Nasdaq Composite jumped 44.2%, its best annual performance so far since 2003, thanks to the artificial intelligence craze.
Some investors believe that we need to be cautious about the speed with which the Fed will loosen its monetary policy, which highlights the uncertainties surrounding the development of inflation in the near term. ” In order for the markets to continue to grow, a planetary alignment is required, which is highly unlikely », Judge Vincent Mortier of Amundi, quoted by the Financial Times. If the Fed loosens policy early in the year, “ he will make a big mistake ” according to him. ” Assume that inflation is no longer a problem (…) can lead to repeating past mistakes “. Also quite pessimistic Ipek Ozkardeskaya, an analyst at Swissquote, expects an investor hangover and a period of correction after the relentless two-month recovery.
On the business side, French luxury giants feature in the Cac 40 this Friday: Kering, Hermès and LVMH rose between 0.6% and 0.7%. If LVMH and Hermès have reached a higher level during the year, neither of them is among the big winners within the Cac 40. The biggest progress this year has been made by carmaker Stellantis.
Medtech Carmat is up 5.7% after announcing software improvements that will boost the safety profile of the Aeson artificial heart, which it designs, manufactures and markets for heart transplants.