Paris (AFP)

The Paris Stock Exchange opened slightly down on Tuesday (-0.37%), still affected by profit taking, for the last session of a year 2019 which turned out to be very positive for the rating.

At 09:14 (08:14 GMT), the CAC 40 index lost 21.94 points to 5,960.28 points, at the opening of a half session, for the last day of the year. The day before, it had finished down 0.91%.

"Investors are in profit-taking mode after the sharp increases in the past two months" on the indices, noted experts from Mirabaud Securities Geneva.

Beyond Monday's downturns, world markets had a very favorable year. With a 26% increase since the start of the year, the Parisian market recorded its best performance since 1999 when it had gained 51.10%.

The last two high points were from 2009 (+ 22.32%) and 2005 (+ 24.60%).

The latest positive advances in trade have provided broad support to the markets.

After more than a year and a half of imposing reciprocal punitive tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in goods, the United States and China agreed in December to a truce in their escalation, pending the signature of a preliminary agreement, which could take place as early as January.

In exchange for the Chinese commitments made a week ago, the Trump administration has given up on imposing new tariffs. And under the terms of the agreement, it also agreed to halve those imposed on September 1 on 120 billion dollars of Chinese imports.

The Conservatives' victory in the UK, which clears the horizon for Brexit, has also supported the rise in the indices.

In terms of indicators, the only major figure now expected is consumer confidence for December in the United States.

Manufacturing activity in China maintained a steady pace of growth in December despite the trade war with the United States, according to an official indicator released Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics (BNS).

- Publicis in the lead -

In terms of values, Publicis took the lead in the CAC 40 index (+ 0.39% to 40.86 euros), regaining some ground to end a trying year for the title (-18.45% since the 1st January).

Renault fell 0.35% to 42.45 euros. The ex-CEO of Renault-Nissan, who was awaiting his trial under house arrest in Japan, confirmed on Tuesday that he is in Lebanon from where he intends to speak freely to the press in the coming days.

Vivendi did not move much (-0.16% to 25.73 euros). The French media giant has signed an agreement to sell 10% of the capital of its subsidiary Universal Music Group to a consortium led by the Chinese Internet giant Tencent, for an amount of 3 billion euros.

Similarly, Eiffage was evolving at breakeven (-0.05% to 102.05 euros) after having concluded the purchase for almost 500 million euros of almost half of Toulouse-Blagnac airport, from the Chinese company Casil, which realizes a capital gain of nearly 200 million.

Latécoère took advantage (+ 1.72% to 3.84 euros) of the announcement of the agreement concluded with Bombardier Aviation to buy its electrical wiring activities from it, whose turnover is estimated at around 80 million dollars.

Veolia fell 1% to 23.74 euros in the wake of the finalization of the sale of its heating and cooling networks in the United States for $ 1.25 billion to Antin Infrastructure Partners, a dedicated French investment fund infrastructure.

Suez fell 0.83% to 13.68 euros. The group announced Monday that it has signed the contract to manage the public drinking water service in Senegal, more than a year after winning a tender contested by its competitors.

© 2019 AFP