Paris (AFP)

The Paris Bourse offered a clear rebound (+ 0.88%) Friday, relieved by the reassuring message from WHO about the Chinese coronavirus as well as by the measures taken by the country's authorities to contain the spread of the epidemic.

The CAC 40 index gained 52.47 points to 6,024.26 points, in a moderate trade volume of 3.7 billion euros. The day before, it had finished down 0.65%.

Over the past week, the index has declined 1.25%. Since the beginning of the year, its gains amount to 0.77%.

"It is really the context linked to this question of the virus" which focuses the attention of the markets, "everything else going into the background", commented to AFP Alexandre Baradez, analyst at IG France.

The market "went back up because yesterday the WHO indicated that there was no international emergency", he added.

China has stepped up efforts to contain the spread of a new killer virus with the confinement of more than 40 million people, while many of the Lunar New Year festivities on Saturday have been canceled and popular sites have been closed to visitors.

The official report of the disease caused by this coronavirus appeared in December on a market in Wuhan, a city in central China, worsened on Friday, with 26 deaths out of a total of 830 infected people including 177 considered serious.

But the upward movement of the place of Paris has "subsided a little" thereafter "because in the United States, there have been two certified cases" and "there would be about sixty suspected cases under surveillance, which cooled the markets a little bit, "he said.

Still, "all the classic risk aversion markers are on" with the major asset classes - oil, currencies and rates - showing cautious signals, while the equity part for the moment is holding up well ", has still noted Mr. Baradez.

In terms of indicators, the growth of private activity in the eurozone stagnated in January, according to the PMI composite index from the Markit firm. But the expansion of the service sector continued and the worst of the manufacturing crisis seems to have passed.

In the United Kingdom, activity in the private sector rebounded strongly in January after the victory of Boris Johnson in the legislative elections, increasing for the first time in five months.

In addition, the presidents of the European institutions signed Friday the divorce agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU and forwarded it to the European Parliament for ratification on January 29, the last act with a view to finalizing the rupture of a tumultuous union.

- Ipsen and Rémy Cointreau heavily penalized -

Ipsen was particularly hard hit (-23.39% to 64.05 euros) after the suspension of all clinical trials related to palovarotene, a molecule intended to treat rare bone diseases.

Rémy Cointreau also slipped, by 11.65% to 98.95 euros, penalized by a steeper than expected decline in its turnover in the third quarter of its staggered financial year 2019-2020.

On the other hand, Carrefour, the largest increase in the CAC 40 (+ 4.58% to 15.29 euros) was driven by 2019 turnover higher than analysts' expectations, at 80.7 billion euros.

Compagnie des Alpes increased by 2% to 30.60 euros thanks to the 11% increase in its activity between October and December.

© 2020 AFP