Paris (AFP)

The Paris Bourse fell Tuesday at midday (-0.57%), catching its breath after its jump the day before, enabled by a series of positive announcements.

At 13:57 (11:57 GMT), the CAC 40 index lost 25.45 points to 4,472.89 points. The day before, it had taken off by 5.16%.

The Parisian rating opened up before losing steam and falling back a little.

Wall Street was preparing for an opening without much conviction. The futures contract for the Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell by 0.12%, that of the broad S&P 500 index by 0.22% and that of the highly technological Nasdaq by 0.29%.

"European stocks were firmer at the opening before losing momentum quickly" and "US futures are far from their highs," said Neil Wilson, analyst for markets.com.

After yesterday's leaps and bounds, "the question arises as to whether it makes sense to go even higher when the economy has experienced its most dizzying decline in decades," he added.

Rising oil, reassuring statements by Fed boss Jerome Powell and announcement of encouraging results from a potential vaccine against Covid-19, positive news punctuated the day on Monday.

France and Germany have also proposed a recovery plan of 500 billion euros to help the European Union overcome the crisis caused by the pandemic, via an unprecedented mechanism for pooling European debt.

This massive and coordinated response, while the European Union has so far struggled to come together, has also been widely praised by the markets.

In terms of values, Sodexo recorded the heaviest drop in the CAC 40 index, with a plunge of 10.07% to 55.18 euros, in the wake of the results of its British counterpart Compass marked by a drop in profits.

The automotive sector suffered from the 76.3% fall in the European market in April over a year, which particularly affected French manufacturers. Renault lost 3.02% to 18.42 euros and Peugeot 2.12% to 12.01 euros.

The suspension of the AMF's ban on short (or short) positions and short sales (speculative practice to take advantage of a decline), affected securities which had been partly protected by this measure, like Klépierre (-12.82% to 14.31 euros) or Air France-KLM (-8.41% to 3.79 euros).

© 2020 AFP