Paris (AFP)

The Paris Stock Exchange was moving in low margins (-0.09%) Thursday at midday, welcoming without frenzy the signing the day before the Sino-American trade agreement, before the publication of a series of statistics overseas. Atlantic.

At 13.53 (12.53 GMT), the CAC 40 index yielded 5.44 points to 6.027.17 points, in a trading volume of 1.2 billion euros. The day before, it had ended in slight decline of 0.14%.

After an opening up slightly and a slight acceleration at the start of the session, the Parisian rating returned to anchor in balance.

Wall Street was preparing for its part to open in the green. The futures contract on the flagship Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.27% while the broader S&P 500 index gained 0.32% and the Nasdaq, with its strong technological coloring, appreciated by 0.42%.

"The long-awaited partial trade agreement between the United States and China was signed yesterday and investors now seem to have no idea what to do," said David Madden, an analyst at CMC Markets, in a note.

After a showdown of more than 18 months between the two largest world powers, "the dust has settled and the mood (of the markets) has subsided," he continued.

According to the agreement signed on Wednesday, Beijing has pledged to buy $ 200 billion in additional US products over the next two years to reduce the trade imbalance between the two countries, Washington's big claim.

The agreement also contains provisions relating to the protection of intellectual property and the conditions of technology transfer, other major requirements of the United States.

"Nevertheless, the American surtaxes should be maintained on approximately 360 billion dollars of Chinese products at least until the presidential election of November 2020 in the United States and more precisely until phase 2 of the agreement is signed, "said Franklin Pichard, chief executive officer of Kiplink Finance.

In terms of indicators, Chinese growth will be more than 6% for 2019, said Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, quoted on Thursday by the official news agency China.

In Germany, the inflation rate rose well to 1.5% over one year in December, after several months of deceleration, according to final figures published Thursday by Destatis.

The minutes of the latest ECB monetary policy meeting, the first under the chairmanship of Christine Lagarde, are also due to be published early in the afternoon.

For the rest, the agenda will be mainly American with the Philadelphia manufacturing activity index for January, import prices for December and retail sales for the same month.

- The automobile at half mast -

In the securities field, the automobile suffered despite an increase in the European automobile market in 2019 for the sixth year in a row. Faurecia fell by 2.67% to 45.19 euros, Valeo by 2.81% to 30.45 euros while Peugeot lost 1.25% to 19.71 euros and Renault 1.80% to 39.28 euros.

But global sales of PSA (Peugeot, Citroën, DS, Opel, Vauxhall), in the process of merging with Fiat Chrysler, fell 10% last year to 3.49 million vehicles, according to a statement released on Thursday.

Iliad rose (+ 2.43% to 122.30 euros) in the wake of the result of its share buyback offer (OPRA), which had been announced in November.

Crédit Agricole lost 1.21% to 12.61 euros. The group announced Wednesday that it would begin to dismantle in March, up to 35%, the guarantee mechanism called "Switch", set up with the regional funds of the mutual banking group.

© 2020 AFP